Staying at Home This Year? Why Not Travel by Book? - Part Two

No one is going to be travelling anywhere for time being, so what better than to immerse yourself in one of these wonderful novels that are due out this summer? These are by some of my favourite authors, and I'm looking forward to settling down, indoors or out, and sailing away with them!

From Venice with Love by Rosanna Ley out on June 25th -  Destination Venice
I have travelled all over the world with Rosanna Ley since reading her first book, The Villa, which was set in Sicily. I love her books because she always makes the setting a key part of the story.
I'm looking forward to this one because it starts in Dorset, and goes to Lisbon and Prague before reaching Venice. A wonderful trip indeed!
It is about two sisters: Harriet who is struggling to run the family farm and Joanna who returns home only to set off again to solve the mystery of Emmy, who wrote the bundle of illustrated love letters which she finds.

The 24-Hour Café by Libby Page was due out on June 25th, but now it's been put back to February 18th 2021, but we can still read it on Kindle or in hardback. Personally, I prefer a paperback, but there you go! - Destination, Your local café
I'm looking forward to reading Libby's second book because I enjoyed her worldwide success, The Lido, so much.
If you are missing your local café, because of social distancing, this will one be a treat. Stella's café is open for twenty-four hours each day and everyone is welcome. Hannah and Mona work there and have dreams of their own, but during one twenty-four hours, their friendship will be tested, lives will be changed and the community will come together.

The Family Holiday by Elizabeth Noble also due out on June 25th - Destination, not sure! Looks like a bit of a magical mystery tour as there is little information available about it online.
Anyway, I've enjoyed all her other Sunday Times best selling novels over the years, so I'm sure this one will be no different. The blurb says it's about 'the joys and heartbreak of a family divided and reunited', so I'll be glad to go wherever it takes me.

Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop by Ali MacNamara due out on July 23rd - Destination, Cornwall!
Earlier this year, I read all Ali's Notting Hill trilogy, and also once again enjoyed Step Back in Time which you must read if you love The Beatles!
However, I have read all her more recent books too because they always have a wonderful touch of magic.
Kate has at last opened her quirky craft shop selling her handmade textile designs. However, some embroidered pictures and mysterious paintings hint about a sixty-year-old love affair, which Jack, who runs the local art shop, helps her to solve, resulting in the discovery of many similarities between them and the 1950s pair.  I can't wait to find out what happens!

Escape to the French Farmhouse by Jo Thomas due out on July 9th - Destination, Provence
Jo is another of my favourite authors, and I have read all her books since her very first, The Oyster Catcher, which came out in 2014. All her books have been about food and love, from oysters to lemons! This one is about baking with lavender.
After a disastrous six weeks in Provence, Del and her husband, Ollie, decide to return home, but as the removal van drives away, she decides that a new life in France without him would bring her the most happiness. She finds a recipe book at the market which Fabian runs and begins to bake, but will this really bring her the joy she desires?

I hope that you will enjoy my selection of novels and try some new authors. Travelling by book is much cheaper than your usual holiday, after all!
If you missed Part One, you can find it here.
Happy travelling!

When Two Books Give You Lemons - Which One Should You Read?

These fabulous books came out this summer, written by two of my favourite authors:   Rosanna Ley and Jo Thomas. The covers look so similar - a table on an Italian terrace overlooking the blue sea, surrounded by lemons, and both are recommended by well known romantic novelists, but would these stories be as good as they look? Which one should you read?

Vernazza with boats 'parked' in the street!

I decided to read The Lemon Tree Hotel first and find out. This is a family story of three generations running The Lemon Tree Hotel in Vernazza, in the Cinque Terre, which I visited a few years ago.
It focuses on Chiara, who is fifty-nine and who inherited the hotel from her parents who opened it to save the buildings of an old convent which had been left in a state of disrepair; her daughter, Elene, who is in charge of the kitchen, and her daughter, Isabella, who has been to business school and helps her grandma with running the rest of the hotel.
There is also Aunt Giovanna who's in her eighties. She's not really an aunt, but was saved by Chiara's parents when the convent closed and now lives in a cottage in the grounds.
Life is going smoothly (although there is a widening rift between Chiara and Elene about how to run the hotel!) until the day that two new guests, Dante and Ferdinand, arrive separately and shake up everyone's lives.

Wikipedia 

Then, I settled down with My Lemon Grove Summer. At college, Zelda and Lennie made a pact that if they hadn't found anyone else by the time they were forty, they would marry each other. So here they are, part of a group of people promised a new start in Sicily with subsidised rents and a relocation fee, arriving in Città d'Ora to find the town is all run down because no tourists ever stop there on their way to Mount Etna. And their homes aren't ready to move into either!

Giuseppe, the mayor, who has invited them to Sicily, lets them stay in his family's farmhouse surrounded by lemon groves for the time being,  but the group is not made welcome in the town.

So on one side, there is Zelda and Lennie; Tabitha, a wannabe journalist; Barry, an ex-postman, Ralph, an ex-city banker and Sherise and Billy, ex-dairy farmers, and on the other: Romeo, who has the town under his control, and his brother, Matteo, the builder. 

Although, Giuseppe, their cousin, is trying to make things work, what the town needs is something to pull it together, and will Romeo's son, Luca, the gorgeous restauranteur, be the one to help the hapless Brits? 

And what about the wedding that tradition in the town says is needed to appease the rumbling Mount Etna? Are Zelda and Lennie ready for it?

These are wonderful stories of romance, sunshine and lemons in Italy. The cast of characters in both are perfect, and each book really explores life in its own region and, the loves and relationships of the people who live there.  

So if books give you lemons, I say read and enjoy both of them! Perhaps with a glass of limoncello?

One Thousand Stars and You by Isabelle Broom - a Fabulous Book, in a Fabulous Setting, with a Fabulous Love Affair!

One Thousand Stars and You is a new departure for Isabelle Broom. After a series of wonderful books set in Zakynthos, Andalusia, Lake Como and Prague, she has spread her wings to Sri Lanka! Here, she shows just what a great writer she is with Rosanna Ley's sense of place and Jojo Moyes' sense of empathy.

Alice has always been adventurous and taken risks as a child, but one day, she falls through the greenhouse roof, resulting in a long scar down the side of her face. Her mother can't cope with Alice's injury and blames herself, so she wraps her in cotton wool, but as she grows up, Alice still wants to test herself and still wants freedom. However, to please her mother, she falls in love with Richard, a safe, kind, devoted boyfriend who is also a History teacher. But is he  really the right one for her? To test her frustration, she dives off a high board into a pool, but the guilt she feels because of her controlling mother and her boyfriend's concern, outweighs the thrill of the dive.

With their thirtieth birthdays approaching in April, she  decides to go with her friends, Maureen and Steph, to Sri Lanka on an adventure of a lifetime. Richard and her mother are worried, and well they should be, because the girls meet Max and Jamal.

Adam's Peak, Sri Lanka - from Wikipedia

Max has a prosthetic leg because of an accident with a landmine in Afghanistan, and Jamal was his physio who has become his friend and protector. Steph is enchanted by Jamal, but Alice and Maureen are both attracted to Max. Of course, Maureen thinks she hasn't any competition because Alice has  Richard. Right? Wrong! Alice is getting more and more captivated by Max, and has to question what she really wants in life. This all comes to a head when these two kindred spirits who want to escape their protective, smothering families, climb Adam's Peak and Alice has to reassess her future. 

This is a fabulous book, in a fabulous setting, with a fabulous love affair. I loved it and I shall certainly read it again!

The Little Theatre by the Sea by Rosanna Ley - a Fabulous Summer Read!

My summer reading is well underway with the new book by Rosanna Ley, The Little Theatre by the Sea, set in beautiful West Dorset and Sardinia.

Faye, unattached and with a new degree in interior design, is invited to house-sit in Sardinia, by her friend, Charlotte, whilst she and her hotelier husband go to Italy for a month on a business trip. It sounds like a wonderful idea to spend a month in the sun, but what Charlotte doesn't tell her until she gets there is that the Alessandro Rinaldi and his sister, Marisa, are looking for someone to renovate the town's Little Theatre. She also doesn't let her know about the animosity in the town towards the Rinaldis and their plans, especially from Pasquale de Montis, an elderly actor, who does not want the theatre to change in any way, and Enrico Volti and his friends, who contest the Rinaldis' ownership of the theatre in the first place.

Cagliari, Sardinia

The story is all about secrets and relationships: secrets that the people of Deriu keep from Faye, and each other, and the secrets that her parents have kept from her, and each other too, as well as the complex relationships between all the characters. For example, the fledgling relationship between Faye and Alessandro, and the failing relationship between her parents, Ade and Molly; the deep love Pasquale felt for Sofia, Alessandro's and Marisa's mother, and the rejection he has never got over when she married Bruno Rinaldi; and the parental love between Enrico and his lost daughter, Giorgia, and the strained love between Pasquale and his even more elderly mother, Dorotea.

Cagliari, Sardinia

One of Rosanna's many writing skills is to make the setting an integral part of the story, contrasting the hot emotions of the people who live in sunny Sardinia, with the cooling of the relationship of Faye's parents back in England; and the decay and demise of the Little Theatre representing the breakdown in friendships, and the renewal of the theatre as a new beginning.

This is a fabulous summer read, whether you're headed to Sardinia or West Dorset for your holiday, or enjoying it in the back garden with a cup of tea !

Last Dance in Havana by Rosanna Ley is Hot! Hot! Hot!

‘If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know how much I love Rosanna Ley’s novels; I’ve read four in the past year! So I’m looking forward to reading this one set in Cuba and England from the 1950s to the present day, and enjoying Rosanna’s skill at combining place and the action of the story. This one should be Hot! Hot! Hot!’

That is what I wrote last year in anticipation of reading Last Dance in Havana, and I wasn’t disappointed!

The rhythm of the rumba permeates the story of Elisa and Duardo, who meet at a dance, fall in love, but are forced apart by the political situation in Cuba in the 1950s. Duardo wants to go off and fight for freedom with Castro, and when Elisa is told that he’s been killed, she’s sent to England to make a better life for herself. There, in Bristol, she meets Philip who is kind to her. She marries him, but he will never replace Duardo in her heart. Philip has a young daughter, Grace, who he’s brought up alone after her mother died under tragic circumstances.

In 2012, Philip has become an alcoholic, and Elisa now runs a conversation class for Cubans and other Spanish speakers. Grace is married to Richard, but is unhappy with her career and the fact that he wants to start a family. Theo, a magician, is a good friend of all of them, attending Elisa's class, and spending a lot of time with Grace and Richard, but gradually Grace falls in love with him. 

There are many parallels between the stories of Elisa and Grace, not the least as to whether they end up with their true love. And again, Rosanna Ley sparkles in her descriptions of  Cuba and Bristol, really drawing you into the action and making the settings an integral part of the story. 

Her next book, The Little Theatre by the Sea, set in Dorset and Sardinia, is due out on June 1st, and I can't wait. Perfect holiday reading!

My Summer Reading List - Gorgeous books to be read this summer!

Here are my gorgeous books to be read this summer!
And here's why I've chosen them (in no particular order!).
1. The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies
I've chosen this because I love the sweeping romantic novels set in exotic places that Rosanna Ley writes so well, and I'm hoping that this one set in Ceylon in the 1920s and 1930s with its powerful themes of love, loss, and secrets revealed will do the trick.
2. The Lake House by Kate Morton
I've already enjoyed two books by this author, The Secret Keeper and The House at Riverton, so I'm looking forward to reading it. The blurb states: A missing child; an abandoned house and an unsolved mystery. Perfect! I can't wait!
3. Last Dance in Havana by Rosanna Ley
If you've been following my blog, you'll know how much I love Rosanna Ley's novels; I've read four in the past year! So I'm looking forward to reading this one set in Cuba and England from the 1950s to the present day, and enjoying Rosanna's skill at combining place and the action of the story. This one should be Hot! Hot! Hot!
4. The Heroes' Welcome by Louisa Young
I read My Dear I wanted to tell you four years ago, and was moved by the story set in the First World War about how the war affected the soldiers fighting in it and how it affected those at home.
This one is the sequel, and looks at the life of the couples after the soldiers have returned. I am especially interested because my father was a soldier who returned, but whose life was never the same.
Louisa Young is the granddaughter of Kathleen Scott, the widow of Captain Scott of the Antarctic, and her first book, A Great Task of Happiness, was a biography of her grandmother's colourful life which I'm looking forward to reading as well.
5. Songs of Love and War by Santa Montefiore
This is another of my favourite authors, and I have read nearly all of her books. Songs of Love and War is another sweeping story set in Ireland and is the first of a trilogy, so that will be wonderful to see what happens next. It follows three girls whose lives are affected by the First World War and the Irish Uprising. I'm looking forward to it because Santa Montefiore is another writer who can combine setting, characters and story to produce a really absorbing novel.
6. The Butterfly Summer by Harriet Evans
Another favourite author! I remember her telling the story at the London Book Fair a few years ago how, working at a publishers, she submitted her first novel, Going Home, under a pseudonym and was delighted that it was accepted!
This book is about Keepsake House in Cornwall and the romantic and dangerous secrets that is holds. Another epic read!

I hope that you might find something here to try too. Happy Summer Reading!

Looking for adventure in Morocco? Follow The Saffron Trail with Rosanna Ley

Reading The Saffron Trail by Rosanna Ley is the next best thing to packing your bag and heading for Morocco!
The setting of the story is always an important ingredient in Rosanna Ley's novels, and this one is no exception where the heat and the bustle of the souks in Marrakech reflect the conflict and confusion in the minds of the main protagonists, Nell and Amy, and the saffron field in Cornwall  reflects the peace that Nell's mother tries to find and maintain.
The story begins one night when Nell's mother walks over the Cornish cliffs to her death. She hasn't replanted the saffron corms on her farm this year. Nell can't understand why and wonders if it was because she planned to die.
Nell meets Amy at a cookery school in Marrakech. She's been sent by her husband, Callum, to get over her mother's death and to learn about the cuisine so she can open her own restaurant. Amy has been sent on an assignment by her boss to take photos of Moroccan life for an exhibition. She is also trying to trace, Glenn, her great aunt Lillian's son, who ran away instead of being drafted to Vietnam in the sixties, and whom Lillian hasn't seen since. All she has is a postcard from Morocco.
So follow Nell and Amy on the adventure of their lives as they follow their own saffron trail. Discover how the rift between Lillian and Mary changed the sisters' lives for ever. Find out what happened to Glenn and see if he ever returns to his ageing mother, and the reason why Nell's mother took that last walk over the cliffs.
It's a wonderful novel, and it makes me want to pack my bag and head for Morocco one day myself!

The Saffron Trail by Rosanna Ley is available here.

Rosanna's new novel, Last Dance in Havana, set in Cuba, is also available here. I can't wait to read it!

Return to Mandalay with Rosanna Ley in a captivatingly exotic and exciting book

I've never been to Burma, or Myanmar, as it is known these days, but it has always sounded exciting and exotic. Rosanna Ley, the author of Return to Mandalay  is known for making the landscape an integral part of her story, and here, she uses the sights, sounds, smell, touch and taste of this wonderful country to reflect and illuminate the action.

Eva Gatsby is sent to Burma to check on some consignments for her boss, Jacqui, at the Bristol Antiques Emporium. Before she goes, her grandfather, Lawrence, who she has lived with since her mother, Rosemary, remarried, asks her to take a chinthe with her to reunite it with its partner, and in doing so, discover if Maya, the sweetheart he left behind in Burma to return home and marry someone else after the War, is still alive.

Chinthes, Mandalay Hill  (Aidan McRae Thompson, Flickr)

Chinthes, pronounced chin-thays or chin-deys, are mythical half-lion creatures, usually found in pairs protecting the entrance to a temple, and Maya gave Lawrence one of a pair of small ones, carved out of teak with eyes of rubies, to protect him and perhaps bring them back together.

When Eva arrives in Yangon (Rangoon), she meets Klaus, a German, who is interested in buying Burmese rubies, and seems quite interested in her.
However, when she manages to track down Maya, she meets her grandson, Ramon, who can be quite attentive, but also remote. He is trying to run his furniture business in a fair honest way, but is being undercut by more unscrupulous men, who don't care about passing off fakes as traditional Burmese antiques.

Apart from Eva's story in the present, there is also Lawrence and Maya's story from the 1930s and 1940s; and the story of Maya's grandmother, Suu Kyi, who was a hand maiden to Queen Supayalat when the British forced her husband, King Thibaw Min, to abdicate, and was given the pair of chinthes as a reward for her devotion; and also the story of how Eva's mother coped after the death of Eva's father, Nick.
Despite sounding complicated, all these strands are skilfully woven together in over five hundred pages of wonderful reading.

Red Online, the online arm of Red magazine (and quite apt if you have read it online!) describes Return to Mandalay as a

     'A gorgeous mouth-watering dream of a holiday read!'   

and I certainly cannot disagree with that even if I did read it in the darkest months of the year!

For a Gripping Read, Try Bay of Secrets by Rosanna Ley

Bay of Secrets is Rosanna Ley's second novel, and the second that I've enjoyed in a bid to read them all this summer.
Known for her skill in intertwining place and story to make an epic multi-stranded romance, this one is set in Barcelona, The Canary Islands and England. This made me very pleased because I visited Barcelona in August and I love to have a book to read set in the place I'm staying!

However, the Barcelona that Sister Julia lived in at the time of the Spanish Civil War could not have been anything like the modern city of today, apart from the fact that the amazing towers of the Sagrada Familia would have stood there waiting for the church to be finished as they still do in 2015.

Sister Julia is one of the three main protagonists. Her parents could not afford to feed her, but wanting her to be safe during the war, forced her to join a convent against her wishes. Here she, unwittingly at first, helped Dr Lopez who fasified death certificates and handed babies over to parents to adopt for large sums of money. On finding out his treachery, she begins to keep a book recording the names of the mothers, their babies and who adopted them. Will she ever be able to help any of the children to find out who they really are?

In 2011, Ruby Rae's parents are killed in a motorcycle crash. Clearing out their house, she discovers a shoe box containing a photo of a hippy girl with a baby, love beads and a baby's bonnet and wonders what they could mean.

Meanwhile Andrés Marin, born in Fuerteventura in The Canary Islands, was also sent away by his father because he promised to be a better artist than him. He came to England and spent seventeen years in Dorset setting up a building business. He meets Ruby at an auction when they both bid for a dilapidated  seaside cottage. Will 'hate at first' sight turn into love for them?

Through the themes of adoption; being wanted or not being wanted by parents; art, and the colours of West Dorset and The Canary Isles, Rosanna paints gripping story. It's not an easy heartwarming read because of what the characters have to go through, but you can't help reading on to find out what happens to Ruby and Andrés, and what Sister Julia's little book of names has to do with their lives.

My Summer Reads 2015

Here is Norman the Gnome guarding my summer reads for 2015. He looks very happy, doesn't he?
I'm happy too because I've already enjoyed books by all these authors, and I'm looking forward to reading some more of their work.

So, here we go!
The Olive Branch by Jo Thomas
I really enjoyed The Oyster Catcher (see my review here) so I was pleased to find her new book already on sale. This one is about Ruthie Collins who buys an Italian farmhouse on the internet.  Italy is one of my favourite holiday destinations and the blurb says that 'olives and romance might just flourish in the warmth of the Mediterranean sun'.
Sounds just my sort of read!

A Single Breath by Lucy Clarke
I was blown away by Lucy's debut novel The Sea Sisters last year: here is my review, so I'm looking forward to reading her new one. Eva witnesses her husband, Jackson, drowning and travels to Tasmania to meet his estranged family, only to find out that the truth about him was all a lie. I'm hoping to immerse(!) myself in the watery imagery which Lucy does so well, all over again!

Love on the Rocks by Veronica Henry.
Late last summer I read The Beach Hut and The Beach Hut Next Door (review here). Unlike Jo Thomas and Lucy Clarke, Veronica has written many novels and I was surprised that I hadn't come across them before. She is brilliant at bringing all sorts of different characters to life having been a script writer on Holby City, The Archers and Heartbeat, and she must have an encyclopaedic knowledge of every  job you can think of to make them realistic. This book is about Lisa and George who throw in their day jobs to buy a rundown seaside hotel, but I'm sure that it won't be all smooth sailing!

Bay of Secrets, Return to Mandalay and The Saffron Trail by Rosanna Ley
Ok, I've gone a bit mad here! I recently read Rosanna's first book The Villa, (review) and liked it so much, I decided to read all her others! These are set respectively in Spain, Burma and Morocco. In Writing Magazine (June 2015) she says that in Germany, her kind of writing is called 'love and landscape' where place and story are inescapably intertwined, and that's just what I adore. Exotic location, romance and multi-stranded narrative means a perfect summer read for me.

I hope you enjoy your summer reading and that I've given you some ideas for books to take on your holidays!

The Villa by Rosanna Ley - Read it for Sheer Pleasure!

I know that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but the covers of Rosanna Ley's books entice me to pick them up, and I can't resist!
I bought Bay of Secrets last summer because of its beautiful cover, but I didn't get round to reading it. However, when Rosanna was featured in Writing Magazine (June 2015), I decided to read all her four novels, starting with The Villa (her first), and I wasn't disappointed!
The article talked about her skills at 'writing multi-stranded epic romance' where 'place and story are inescapably intertwined', and this is just what she's done in The Villa.
It tells the story of Tess, who inherits a villa in Sicily from an mysterious benefactor; her problematic daughter, Ginny, who flunks her A Level exams on purpose so she doesn't have to go to university; and Tess's mother, Flavia, who left Sicily at the age of seventeen, never to return.
Sicily takes centre stage when Tess visits the island for the first time to find out why she's been left the Villa Sirena. Family feuds and tales of murder and deceit concerning the mystery of Il Tesoro, the treasure that the villa is supposed to hide, bring her into contact with Giovanni Sciarra who is very interested in her, but is it for the right reasons? Then there is also the mosaic artist, Tonino Amato, dark and moody, yet he's bothered about her diving alone in the sea. . .
Tess leaves Ginny with her parents, and things seem to be going well until Ginny's father, David, turns up after leaving Tess when she became pregnant all those years ago to go to Australia. (I love Ginny and her alliterative exclamations: 'meandering meerkats' to give just one!)
Running alongside Tess's story, is Flavia's own which she writes down in a notebook, interspersed with recipes, as she's never been able to tell Tess, or even her own husband, Lenny, the whole truth about why she left her Sicilian home and family, after the war, to live at first in smoggy, cold November London.
Throughout the book, the colours and moods of the Sicilian landscape reflect the action in the story and I think it would be a perfect novel to take on holiday, or read for sheer pleasure!