A Wedding at the Beach Hut by Veronica Henry - Feel-good, Warm, and Delightful

Things are looking up this week, but even if you can't get away to the seaside yet, A Wedding at the Beach Hut by Veronica Henry is the perfect book to enjoy on your own favourite sun lounger at home. If only it would stop raining!
Robyn and Jake are landscape gardeners;
business partners who fell in love, and their wedding party, a small affair with their favourite people, is to be held in the Shedquarters, the beach hut that belongs to Jake's family on Everdene Sands.
On her eighteenth birthday, Robyn's mother, Sylvia, gave her a special box from her birth mother, Emily. Robyn knew she'd been adopted, but couldn't bring herself to open it until now, when she is pregnant herself, and getting married in just one month's time. However, she worries about upsetting her parents if she gets in touch with Emily. They have been wonderful, bringing her up on the beautiful Hawksworthy Farm in Devon, giving her the life that she may never have had. But now the farm is losing money and Sheila and Mick must decide whether not to sell it.
Jake's parents, Rocky and Tina, have split up. Rocky, a builder, moved them all to Devon to have a simple family life, but it was too quiet for her, so she moved back to Enfield to run her hairdressing business, leaving him to earn a living and look after their two boys, Jake and Ethan. Now Jake's getting married and Ethan's off to uni, he's feeling lonely and wondering what his future will be. However, the Shedquarters has been his lifeline and the centre of family beach life for him and the boys and, with a lick of paint, will be the perfect wedding venue.
When she opens the box, Robyn discovers that Emily, has written her a letter about giving her up  thirty years ago. This breaks Robyn's heart, but she also worries about getting in touch with her as her family may not know about the existence of a baby at all. Meanwhile, Emily has never stopped thinking about the little baby girl she relinquished all those years ago.
This is a warm and delightful novel with real characters you care about, their stories expertly woven together, set in around the beautiful Devon coast, with that all important feel-good ending.
Piano playing does come into it and I challenge you to resist finding that piece by Ravel on YouTube!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

The Flat Share by Beth O'Leary - Funny, Sad, Gripping and Uplifting

The Flat Share by Beth O' Leary has everything. This funny, sad, gripping, uplifting and entertaining book has elements of Bridget Jones, especially in the style of Leon's chapters and Tiffy's circle of friends: Rachel, who she works with at Buttercup Publishing; Gerty, a barrister and Mo, a counsellor, who all want the best for her.
The story starts when Gerty and Mo, her old uni friends, are viewing a really grotty flat with Tiffy after she has split up with Justin and has had to move out of his flat, still owing him rent. This place is all she can afford, but then she finds an ad on Gumtree for a sunny one-bedroomed flat in Stockwell. One bedroom and one bed. Leon works nights at a hospice, so the flat and the bed would be hers from 6pm to 9am every night. She's an assistant editor works from 9 to 5. What could possibly go wrong?
They have never met. It is Kay, Leon's girlfriend, who shows Tiffy the flat to check up on her, of course, and because Tiffy is very tall and has a crazy fashion sense, Kay doesn't think she'll be much of a threat. . . But Leon and Tiffy soon get to know each other even so, as they correspond by leaving Post-it notes around the flat.
The other characters which make this such an entertaining read are: Katherin, who's written a book about knitting and crochet which Tiffy is trying to promote with hilarious results; Holly, a child at the hospice who is wise beyond her years; Mr Price, an elderly man at the hospice who is desperate to find the lost love of his life; and Richie, Leon's brother, who is waiting for an appeal because he says he's been imprisoned for a crime that he didn't commit.
All these people's stories are about love and loss, and finding new love and friendship which make this a novel really worth reading.

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.

Secrets of Santorini by Patricia Wilson - A Passionate Romance with a Totally Gripping Mystery

Main photo from Santorini.net

It didn't look as if I'd be going on my holiday to the Greek Islands this year, so I bought Secrets of Santorini by Patricia Wilson instead and I've really loved it!
It is a passionate romance with a totally gripping mystery, told in turn by Bridget, and Irini, her daughter.
In about 1990, Bridget, an archeology student, in Dublin, falls in love with her professor, Tommy McGuire who is fifteen years older. Because such an affair isn't acceptable, he resigns and goes to Santorini to do some research on finding Atlantis. Bridget then gives up her course and flies out to join him and they get married.
On the day that they find Queen Thira's dragonfly necklace which could be the key to solving the mystery of Atlantis, he has an heart attack and Bridget has to sell the necklace to pay for his operation and hospital stay. At the same time, she find out that she's pregnant.
At night, her dreams are full of Queen Thira who rules Atlantis with her ten kings and her battle with Poseidon for some land in Crete where they can escape to when the volcano that Atlantis sits on erupts.
In the present day, Irini, Bridget and Tommy's daughter, has never felt loved and wanted by her parents. At the age of five, she was shipped back to Ireland to boarding school. Now her parents have returned to Dublin, but her mother cannot stay away from Santorini, so she goes back.
Tommy is ill, but Bridget is now also seriously injured in hospital in Crete so Irini goes there to try find out why her parents have always been so distant, and to see her mother one last time. At Heraklion airport, a Greek man rescues her suitcase from the carousel and clumsily, she drives her trolley over his foot. Later, in her hire car, she knocks a man off his bicycle, breaking his arm, and it's him! He's called Angelo, and after this very shaky start, they fall in love and he helps her with her quest.
Why have Irini's parents always been so distant?
Why was Bridget compelled to go back to Santorini?
Why were Bridget's dreams full of the story of Queen Thira and her daughter, Oia?
What happened to the dragonfly necklace that Bridget sold?
This unputdownable novel is told against the very realistic backdrop of Santorini and Crete, nestling in the blue Aegean Sea. Even a neighbour noisily mowing his grass, couldn't pull me away from this story. Fantastic!

And even more fantastic, another book by Patricia Wilson, Greek Island Escape is out on April 2nd 2020!

A Nice Cup of Tea by Celia Imrie - An Adventure, A Mystery, A Comedy and A Delightful Romp

A Nice Cup of Tea by Celia Imrie is a perfect book to relax with and dream that you are sunning yourself on the French Riviera. So pour out that tea, or a nice glass of wine and enjoy!
I haven't read the first two books about the group of retired expats who buy a restaurant in Bellevue-sur-Mer, although I have read Sail Away which I loved, so I certainly will read the others now.
This one begins when they are hoping La Mosaïque will be saved by the sale of a valuable mosaic thought to be by Picasso, but that all falls through at the last moment and Theresa, Sally, William, Benjamin and Carol are left trying to save their restaurant with hilarious and surprising results.
This book has everything from a stalker who seems to be following Theresa;  a runaway, Theresa's granddaughter, Chloe; bankruptcy, La Mosaïque; the glamorous world of filming, Sally; sailing, Sally again; the French Rivera, a beautiful backdrop to the story; and drugs, don't ask!
It is an adventure, a mystery, a comedy and a delightful romp with a cast of wonderful characters which I thoroughly enjoyed and I hope that you will too.