BLOG TOUR: Always By Your Side - Julie Haworth

When school teacher Rose loses her dream job at a London primary school, her self-confidence takes a knock. Worse still, her stockbroker fiancé, Ollie, sees it as the perfect opportunity for her to join his firm, which only adds to the feelings Rose has that their relationship might be coming to an end.

 

An unexpected phone call, and an elderly aunt who’s taken a fall, means Rose must drop everything – including Ollie - and return to Blossom Heath, the Sussex village she grew up in.

 

With no job to rush home to, Rose decides to stay in Blossom Heath for the Summer, trading London for the idyllic countryside. Here Rose finds herself reconnecting to the village life of her childhood in more ways than one, including falling head-over-heels for local farmer, Jake.

 

So when her London life comes calling, Rose is faced with an impossible choice… to return to the high-pressure life of her past, or embrace the joy of a new life in the country.

 

What did I think?

Oh I really enjoyed this!  It's an absolutely gorgeous heartwarming read that left me with a huge smile on my face.

I adored everything about the main character of Rose.  Rose is a marvellous teacher and it's no surprise that she has lost confidence in her ability with a demonic headmaster and a selfish fiancé constantly pecking away at her dream career.  Getting the call to look after her elderly Great Aunt Jean in an idyllic country village gives Rose the perspective she needs to find out what is really important to her.

Rose's fiancé Ollie is my idea of a nightmare partner.  He doesn't support Rose and thinks she's wasting her time teaching when she could be working in his firm, doing a meaningless job that she would hate.  Farmer Jake, on the other hand, shows Rose that the right man will be supportive and loving, without having to make huge gestures or buying expensive gifts.

Of course, the star of the show has to be Scout, the dog that Rose rescues.  Scout has a huge impact on Rose's life and helps her to make some difficult decisions.  I was on the edge of my seat when Rose and Scout's perfect relationship was threatened and I loved this tense addition to the story.

Julie Haworth very cleverly shows the stark contrast between town and country throughout the book; it's not just the pace of life, it's people, schools, jobs, homes and communities that are completely different.  As much as I would hate everyone knowing my business, I would much prefer to live in Blossom Heath than London.

Beautifully written, incredibly uplifting and completely heartwarming, Always By Your Side is a delightful debut novel and a worthy winner of the Romantic Novelists' Association Katie Fforde Debut Novel Of The Year 2023.

I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

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BLOG TOUR: The Curious Case of Maggie Macbeth - Stacey Murray

Sometimes you have to take the law into your own hands...

After losing her high-powered job in Hong Kong, forty-something widow and lawyer, Maggie Macbeth, turns up on the doorstep of her old sidekick, Cath, in the sleepy Peak District village of Archdale. A fish out of water, Maggie comes into conflict with everyone and everything - especially Cath's awful friend, Tiggy - and rock bottom is just around the corner. But it turns out Maggie isn't the only one in trouble. When a crisis hits the local community, Maggie has a choice: to give up on life, or go back to her legal roots and fight for justice. But can she save the day as well as herself?

This laugh-out loud debut novel shows that no battle is too big when you've got friends on your side.

What did I think?

Stacey Murray's debut, The Curious Case of Maggie Macbeth is a very entertaining story with a larger than life protagonist.  Maggie Macbeth is kind of like a hedgehog: prickly and tough on the outside but soft and caring on the inside.  If you make friends with Maggie I think you'll have a friend for life, such as in the case of her friend, Cath.

Glaswegian Maggie Macbeth makes quite an entrance to the story when she turns up out of the blue at her friend's cafe in Derbyshire clutching a traffic cone.  I worked in Glasgow for a wee while so a Glaswegian clutching a traffic cone did make me chuckle in the same way as it did when I first saw the traffic cone perched atop the Duke of Wellington statue in Glasgow city centre.  A stickler for the rules, as evidenced by the confiscated traffic cone, Maggie inevitably seems to rub people up the wrong way at first but she's definitely someone you want on your side when the chips are down.

It's not a saying I've ever adopted but it came to mind when I was reading Maggie's story: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."  Widowed and unemployed in her forties, Maggie has been handed more than her fair share of lemons but I felt that she got more job satisfaction through helping a local farmer with a loan contract than she ever did with any of her high flying clients in Hong Kong.  Of course, it helps when the farmer in question is a bit dishy!

I loved Maggie and Cath's longstanding friendship and the strain it was put under when Maggie seemed to have outstayed her welcome.  Cath's dog, Jazz, has to get a special mention as she's such a fantastic little character and she almost stole the show; she really took a shine to Maggie and the feeling is definitely mutual.  What I loved most is how things didn't always turn out as expected for Maggie, making it very realistic and true to life.

Gloriously heart-warming, The Curious Case of Maggie Macbeth is a fabulous feel-good book.  It might take a while for readers to warm to Maggie but she is well worth getting to know in this charming and witty debut from Stacey Murray.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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Land of Plenty - Charlie Pye-Smith

Golden fields, ripening apples, lowing cattle: our idea of the landscape has been shaped by agriculture, as has the land itself. But in a fast-changing world, how does the great British countryside continue to provide the food we eat?

Most people living in Britain today must go back several generations before they find an ancestor who worked on the land. How much do we really know about those who are supplying us with the most essential things in life: our daily bread and butter, meat and fish, fruit and vegetables?

In Land of Plenty Charlie Pye-Smith travels the length and breadth of these isles to explore the little-understood world of British agriculture. From ultramodern indoor dairy units producing millions of litres of milk a year to small, old-fashioned farms making cheese with twenty or thirty cows, and from landowners whose families have farmed the same fields for centuries to tenants who have just joined the industry, Pye-Smith investigates the timeless connection between land and people in the twenty-first century.

Revealing the dairy industry in Somerset and Gloucestershire; beef in the Scottish Borders; sheep in North Yorkshire; pigs and poultry in East Anglia and Hampshire; vegetables in Norfolk; and fruit in Essex and the West Country, Land of Plenty is a colourful and rewarding travelogue that gets to the very heart of modern British life.

What did I think?

I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did; it is so informative and interesting with clearly defined chapters focused on particular aspects of farming.  When I picked up Land of Plenty, I didn't know a lot about farming but I certainly know a bit more now!

I was reading Land of Plenty when I went on a trip to the Ouseburn Valley and the guide made a comment about animals from the far east being brought to graze on the banks of the Ouseburn before being sent to slaughter, like it was a little health farm for them.  Thanks to Charlie Pye-Smith I knew why the farmers did this...I'm not going to tell you as it will spoil the amazement you will experience when reading it for yourself.

As a long time vegetarian, I did shudder at the passages on slaughter for the Halal and Kosher markets but found that farmers also found this barbaric and shocking.  Farmers may slaughter animals too but they care about their stock and aim to be as humane as possible.  I actually enjoyed reading about the cows and there's even a photo of four cows awaiting slaughter, which made me smile with its similarity to any four girlfriends gathering together for a group photo.

Land of Plenty is very current with references to Brexit and what it means for UK farmers; perhaps not the doom and gloom that we are told in the news but rather that farmers must become better at what they do with improved quality being passed to the consumers along with closer links to the public as farmers open up their arms to embrace exciting entrepreneurial activities.

A book about UK farming is not complete without mentioning the foot and mouth horror of 2001, which I remember quite clearly.  It was so refreshing to see how some farmers coped with this by looking for alternative means of survival of their farm rather than closing up shop after the death of their herd.

Although I'm a beer drinker, I also really enjoyed the chapter about cider.  From beef to cider, you can see that this book really encompasses every single aspect of farming that you can imagine.  Each chapter is filled with interesting facts and personal stories that add to the human interest and give a wonderful insight into the life of a UK farm.

Concise and informative, Land of Plenty is a surprisingly riveting read and one of the best non-fiction books I have read for a long time.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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BLOG TOUR: The Woolgrower's Companion - Joy Rhoades

Australia 1945. Until now Kate Dowd has led a sheltered life on her family's sprawling sheep station but, with her father's health in decline, the management of the farm is increasingly falling to her.

Kate is rising to the challenge when the arrival of two Italian POW labourers disrupts everything – especially when Kate finds herself drawn to the enigmatic Luca Canali.

Then she receives devastating news. The farm is near bankrupt and the bank is set to repossess. Given just eight weeks to pay the debt, Kate is now in a race to save everything she holds dear.

What did I think?

You could be forgiven for thinking that The Woolgrower's Companion would be what I call a 'Mammy's book' from looking at the cover but it has so much depth and emotion that it is far from the family saga I was initially expecting.  Each chapter starts with an extract from a sheep farmer's manual published in 1906: The Woolgrower's Companion; this is so authentic that I thought it was a real book and I was astonished to find that it was Joy Rhoades' very own creation.  

The story revolves around Kate: a woman in a man's world.  As her father becomes more and more incapable of running the farm, the responsibility falls to Kate but a lot of the men aren't willing to work for a sheila.  Some men don't have any choice, as they are Italian prisoners of war and have been shipped to Australia to work on the land until the war is over.

Unbeknown to Kate, her father has been running up debts with local traders and more importantly with the bank.  Now the bank are knocking at the door and demanding their money back.  Kate sells what little items of value that she has but she still falls short; there's only one thing of value left, a rare yellow sapphire, but Kate's father doesn't know where he has hidden it.  With time running out, Kate is set to lose more than the farm as she finds herself getting closer to Luca, one of the POWs.  With a husband she barely knows away at war, Kate could easily lose her heart to Luca if she's not careful.

This book is so beautifully written that it creeps into your heart so slowly at first but it very quickly takes root, culminating in an emotional explosion as events around Kate unfold.  I found the plight of the aborigines very moving and it's something I haven't thought about before but the way they were treated is shocking, after all, Australia was their country first.  I absolutely love learning something whilst I am reading fiction books and I found it fascinating that so many Italian prisoners of war were sent to Australia.  I suppose returning home after the war must have been daunting for the Italian soldiers, with many having no families left, so some Australians sponsored the Italians to return; it's so lovely to think that those who were once enemies became friends. 

What an exceptional debut from Joy Rhoades and an absolute joy to read.  The Woolgrower's Companion is a beautiful, authentic and multi-faceted historical novel that has more depth than the Pacific Ocean.  I am delighted that this is only the beginning of Kate's story and I am already looking forward to the sequel.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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About the author:

About me? I grew up in a small town in the bush in Queensland, Australia. I spent my time with my head in a book, or outdoors – climbing trees, playing in dry creek beds, or fishing for yabbies in the railway dam under the big sky. Some of my favourite memories were visiting my grandmother’s sheep farm in rural New South Wales where my father had grown up. She was a fifth generation grazier, a lover of history, and a great and gentle teller of stories. My childhood gave me two passions: a love of the Australian landscape and a fascination with words and stories.

I left the bush at 13 when I went to boarding school in Brisbane. I stayed on there to study law and literature at the University of Queensland. After, my work as a lawyer took me first to Sydney and then all over the world, to London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and New York. But I always carried in my head a strong sense of my childhood: the people, the history, the light and the landscape. Those images have never left me and they would eventually become The Woolgrower’s Companion. It’s a story I’ve felt I had to tell.

I currently live in London with my husband and our two young children. But I miss the Australian sky.

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