The 24-Hour Café by Libby Page - A Well-Written, Captivating Story

I loved The 24-Hour Café by Libby Page; it was so interesting! What a follow-up to The Lido!
It is a feel good, well written, captivating story about twenty-four hours in Stella's all night café near Liverpool Street Station. It focuses on two friends, Hannah and Mona who met at a friend's party, and who share a flat together as well as working together at Stella's. They work separate shifts, twelve hours on and twelve hours off but on this day, things begin to change.
It is 12am and the first twelve hours follow Hannah's shift as she watches and serves the lonely, the alone, the happy and the sad. Her own story is revealed through her thoughts: her dreams of becoming a singer; her anguish about her ex-boyfriend, Jaheim, and her long friendship with Mona.
Libby Page also takes several of the customers and illustrates their stories to form a rich patchwork of human relationships e.g. the homeless student, Dan; the couple in their sixties, Martha and Harry and Monique, the first time mother. Cleverly, each story is memorable in its own right.
But it is at 11am when Hannah gets a text from Mona that things begin to change.
When Mona arrives to take over from Hannah, Libby Page picks up her story as the shift progresses, about her dreams of becoming a professional dancer, her relationship with Hannah and the events that have led up to today.
It is a thoroughly engrossing story, and one that I was sorry to finish. I'm looking forward to the next book by Libby Page very much!

The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris - Mysterious and Magical

Returning to Lasquenet-sous-Tannes is like returning to a favourite French village after many  years. Vianne Rocher's chocolaterie is still there in the village square, along with Narcisse's flower shop and Francis Reynaud's church, but a chill wind is blowing and snow is falling from the clear blue sky. Someone will be dead before dawn. This is how Joanne Harris starts her fourth novel in the series, The Strawberry Thief, which began with Chocolat twenty years ago.
It is Narcisse who has died, leaving his valuable woodland to Rosette, Vianne's strange youngest daughter who is only sixteen years old, much to the disgust of Narcisse's daughter, Michèle.
He used to call Rosette his Strawberry Thief because she would eat his wild strawberries, but Michèle can't understand why he should leave her the land.
This story is told from the points of view of Vianne, Rosette, and Reynaud, and also through a confession that Narcisse has written to him before his death, whilst Morgane Dubois arrives to open a new business in Narcisse's empty shop. But who is she and what does she want?
Mysteries abound as the wind changes, forcing changes in the lives of those living in Lasquenet, and revealing many parallels between them.
This another wonderful mysterious, magical novel about this entrancing place and its people and I really enjoyed it so much that I think I will go back and, starting with Chocolat, read the series all over again.

Coming Up Roses by Rachael Lucas - The Perfect Book to Relax with in the Garden

If you are looking for the perfect book to relax with in the garden, then Coming Up Roses by Rachael Lucas is the one for you.
Daisy has arrived in Steeple St John to house-sit for her parents whilst they are on a gap year trip to India and also to look after their elderly golden retriever, Polly. Daisy studied horticulture at agricultural college, and after a disasterous relationship there, she's glad to get away and immerse herself in putting her parents' garden to rights.
She quickly gets involved with village life after dousing Elaine with her hose by mistake, and being invited to her house where she meets Jo, a counsellor at Elaine's husband's school. She also becomes friendly with eighty-five-year-old Thomas, a gardener who knows most of the gardens in the village. There is also Ned, a local vet, who she meets a the Parish council meetings and George, the gorgeous Irishman with blue eyes who is out to steal her heart.
Rachael Lucas has written a great representation of village life led by the formidable, Flora, the leader of the Parish council whom Daisy and Ned find so funny, but all this is challenged by the developers who want to build three executive homes in the garden of Orchard Villa when Daisy's parents decide to put it up for sale.
I really enjoyed this warm-hearted, funny book and it is the third novel that I've read by Rachael Lucas this year. I can thoroughly recommend it.