Recently I've Read...A Whole Lot of Romance

I've read some fantastic romance lately!  Here are the books that have set my heart aflutter - perfect love stories for long summer nights.

 

The One with the Engagement Party - Erin Lawless

 

 

Nora and Harry have just got engaged and so of course, it's time to celebrate! With their friends by their side they can start planning for the big day, but they each have their own hurdles to overcome. Perfect summer reading which left me gagging for more. Heartwarming and humorous, The One with the Engagement Party is Erin Lawless at her best.

The Sunshine and Biscotti Club - Jenny Oliver

 

 

Jenny Oliver whisked me away to the sun with this story of a group of friends helping to set up a baking holiday resort. As ever Oliver's descriptions of the food - aroma, taste, texture - are fantastic. Each character grows as the story progresses which makes this a satisfying romantic read. The only reason I didn't give this 5* is that it took me a long time to differentiate between the characters, especially the males, which meant I was referring back to make sure I wasn't getting muddled. All in all, a delightful summer read.

The Little Bookshop on the Seine - Rebecca Raisin

 

 

I loved this book! A story of self discovery and long distance romance set in a Paris bookshop. Rebecca writes setting and description beautifully - and creates characters that are easy to relate to through common themes of friendship, love and trust. A comforting read which I quickly became engrossed in - Rebecca Raisin has come up trumps again!  

 

Give them a try - they're the perfect blend of uplifting fun and love-riddled angst.  They're all available NOW.                 

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Cafe - Jenny Oliver

The Blurb

Home, Sweet Home….?

There’s nowhere more deliciously welcoming…

When Annie White steps back onto Cherry Pie Island, it’s safe to say her newly inherited Dandelion Café has seen better days! And while her childhood home on the Thames-side island idyll is exactly the same retreat from the urban bustle of London she remembers, Annie’s not convinced that Owner of The Dandelion Cafe is a title she’ll be keeping for long. Not that she can bear the idea of letting her dedicated, if endearingly disorganized staff lose their jobs. Plus café life does also have the added bonus of working a stone’s throw away from millionaire Matt and his disarmingly charming smile!
One (shoestring budget) café makeover, a few delightful additions to the somewhat retro menu and a lot of cherry pie tastings later, The Dandelion Café is ready for its grand reopening! But once she’s brought the dilapidated old café back to life, Annie finds herself wishing her stay on the island was just a bit longer. She always intended to go back to the big city…but could island living finally have lured her back home for good?

Perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond, Sophie Kinsella and Cathy Bramley.

The Cherry Pie Island series
The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café – Book 1
The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip – Book 2
The Great Allotment Challenge – Book 3
One Summer Night at the Ritz – Book 4

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café is Book 1 in The Cherry Pie Island series.

Each part of Cherry Pie Island can be read and enjoyed as a standalone story – or as part of the utterly delightful series.

The Review

I've read a few of Jenny Oliver's books and there are two things I've really enjoyed about them - the way she writes about community and the descriptions of food.  Honestly, there's no one else who can make my mouth water so much purely through their writing!

I absolutely loved The Parisian Christmas Bake Off when I read it a few years ago and also found The Little Christmas Kitchen and The Vintage Summer Wedding were good reads, although didn't captivate me in the same way.  However, with The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café Jenny Oliver had me hooked from the very first page - she's back to her baking best!

Firstly, I loved that Annie had a past.  She's not broken by it, but it's there - an ex-husband from a Vegas wedding, an insecurity built on her father's preference for her brother over her, a lack of money management skills... I felt that by knowing more about Annie's history I empathised with her plight as she fought her inner battle over what to do with the café she's inherited.   Should she stay and revamp it?  Is it financially viable?  Or should she sell it and allow developers to change the landscape of Cherry Pie Island forever?

Of course, this is a romance so there's a love interest (Hello Matt!)  Annie and Matt's friendship develops throughout the book and it's a cute and believable progression.  Both characters had baggage from their pasts but I was cheering this couple on and willing them to get together!

But the absolute highlights for me were the deliciously tempting descriptions of food being sold in the café and Jenny Oliver's charming titbits of information about the café's homely interior.  Even by the end of the book it's nothing swish, but that adds to the delightful normalcy of it.  It's exactly the kind of place you hope to stumble across for friendly conversation and a bite to eat, and is the perfect fictional retreat.

I'll definitely be back for another slice of cherry pie as the series continues.  Mine's a large slice with cream please, Annie. 

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café is out now, published by Carina.

With thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Cherry Pie Island series- Jenny Oliver BLOG TOUR

I am a huge fan of Jenny Oliver and I'm really excited about her latest delicious series, Cherry Pie Island.  Jenny very kindly agreed to do a Q and A with Books with Bunny as part of her blog tour, so let's get down to business!

Are you a baker, and if so have you always baked?  What are your earliest memories of baking?
- My earliest memory of baking is helping with the chocolate cake at Christmas - creaming butter and sugar till my arm hurt! At primary school we had baking on rotation and I always prayed it was my turn. I loved it. We would make little cupcakes and eat them when they were still warm. At secondary school we did Home Ec - I remember making swiss roll and us sneaking into the classroom and eating what we’d made at lunchtime which was totally against the rules! Having to go home and tell your parents you got in trouble for eating swiss roll is so ridiculous. We did learn a lot of the basics of cooking though, and I think it was a really important lesson that I hope doesn’t fall off the curriculum completely.

Have you ever had a baking disaster?

- Oh loads! The one that scarred me for life was in the aforementioned Home Ec lessons. We had to make a flan for an exam - my pastry crumbled, my pie dish was too small, my patisserie creme didn’t set so all the strawberries sunk into it and disappeared without a trace and then my jam glaze congealed into a lump. It was so awful. Not one bit went right. It sat forlornly at the bottom of our fridge for ages when I took it home. Not even my dad would eat it which is saying something.

You write the most beautiful, vivid descriptions of food in your books- don't you find it makes you hungry to write?  Because as a reader my mouth is always watering when I read them!

- Have you seen the film Hook? When they’re hungry they imagine that they’re eating something and savour the taste in their minds. For me, writing about food is a bit like that. I feel like I’ve been living off cherry pie for weeks.

This is the first book in the Cherry Pie Island series, how many do you envisage overall and how long will readers have to wait for the next instalment?

- At the moment there are four in total, but I’m sure I’ll pop back there in the future. They’re coming out one a month so you don’t have long to wait for the next one!

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions Jenny, as always it's a pleasure!

- Thanks for having me! x

 

THE GRAND REOPENING OF THE DANDELION CAFÉ, the first book in the Cherry Pie Island Series, is available now.

Find out more about the Pie Bake Off here.

 

The Little Christmas Kitchen- Jenny Oliver

 

 

I loved Jenny Oliver's last Christmassy offering.  The Parisian Christmas Bake Off was sweet, fun and festive (you can read my review) and it's fair to say I was very excited to find out what she'd be bringing to the table this year.

 

The Blurb

 

Christmas at the Davenports’ house was always about one thing: food!

 

But when sisters Ella and Maddy were split up, Ella to live in London with their Dad, and Maddy staying in Greece with their Mum, mince pies lost their magic.  Now, a cheating husband has thrown Ella a curved snowball…and for the first time in years, all she wants is her mum. So she heads back to Greece, where her family’s taverna holds all the promise of home. Meanwhile, waitress Maddy’s dreams of a white Christmas lead her back to London…and her Dad.  But a big fat festive life-swap isn’t as easy as it sounds! And as the sisters trade one kitchen for another, it suddenly seems that among the cinnamon, cranberries and icing sugar, their recipes for a perfect Christmas might be missing a crucial ingredient: each other.

The Review

The Little Christmas Kitchen started off with a bang as Ella ran from her problems in London and hot tailed it to Greece- I was immediately interested in her story.  We are led to believe she had a nigh on perfect life until finding out her husband has been cheating on her with one of 'the girls' and I would perhaps have liked this to have been shown a bit more of their relationship before things went belly up.  However, I loved the imagery and doubt of her 'taxi scene' and the thought of her hapless cheat balancing a ten or twelve foot tree precariously as she walks from their flat. 

Maddy on the other hand-well, I struggled to warm to her at first -I'm not sure if it was because in the early chapters she was portrayed as self centred and jealous of her sister's London lifestyle (although I did always admire Maddy's drive and the pursuit of following her dreams to sing).

Being honest, this story didn't grab me in the same way The Parisian Christmas Bake Off did. I loved the wonderfully descriptive writing and zippy dialogue, yet there were occasions in the first 25% where I skimmed over the text.  I suppose it was a bit of a slow burner for me.  However, by the end I was well and truly won over, enjoyed finding out how life changed for both sisters, and when it came to the descriptions of the food ... wow. Just wow.  I think I actually physically drooled. 

Overall, this is an easy chick lit read about the difficulties families and relationships face, with festive undertones and a foodie flavour.  If, like me, you aren't immediately hooked, it is well worth persevering.  My opinion definitely changed as the story developed and characters I was convinced I didn't give two hoots about won me over and had me hoping for resolutions and a hopeful future.  The Little Christmas Kitchen is a charming read.

Jenny’s latest novel THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS KITCHEN is out now.

 

Hungry for more? Try  THE VINTAGE SUMMER WEDDING and THE PARISIAN CHRISTMAS BAKE-OFF, which are also available in paperback.

With thanks to the publisher for providing me with a galley copy of this book in return for my honest opinion.

 

The Vintage Summer Wedding- Jenny Oliver

 

The sun is shining and the flowers are blooming- it must be wedding season!  Jenny Oliver has capitalised on the summer loving in her latest offering The Vintage Summer Wedding, with a title and cover which is bound to appeal to brides, bridesmaids and hopeless romantics everywhere. 

Anna is at her lowest ebb.  After losing her job, her money and her self esteem, she reluctantly moves back to her hometown with her fiancé.  Former dancer Anna begrudgingly finds herself becoming involved with the children in the community, helping them choreograph a routine for a nationwide talent show.  Slowly Anna realises that happiness is what counts in life rather than material goods.

I found this book difficult to get into- Anna irritated me with her brattish attitude and superiority, which I suppose is the point, but I found her annoying as a character .  Admittedly, as she developed I liked her more, yet I didn't warm to her in the way I did to Rachel in Jenny Oliver's previous novella The Parisian Christmas Bake Off (see my review here).  Being totally truthful, I couldn't have cared less if Anna got her happy ending or not until about two thirds of the way into the story.

It probably didn't help that I'd expected a different plot- more about wedding planning, choosing bouquets, bridezilla moments- whereas actually The Vintage Summer Wedding places more emphasis on community and village living than on impending nuptials.  It didn't bother me as I liked the small-town sniping, but I imagine there will be other people out there who will get a different plot than they imagined.

I liked the morals of the story- appreciating the small things, that pleasure can come in unexpected ways, the importance of community- Jenny Oliver writes contemporary women's fiction which leaves you with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.  I was glad I persevered with this one, it definitely became more engaging as the book progressed.

The Vintage Summer Wedding is out now, published by Carina.

With thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy in return for my honest opinion.