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.

Guest post by Anouska Knight

Today's guest on Books with Bunny is bestselling author Anouska Knight.  Her previous releases Since You've Been Gone and A Part of Me have received rave reviews, and her new release Letting You Go looks to hit the same dizzy heights. 

Anouska's post introduces us to Alex, the protagonist in Letting You Go and explains why the author has a soft spot for her...

Alex Foster is not in a great place. She’s in her late twenties, trying to live her life in as small and inconspicuous a way as possible because she doesn’t feel that she deserves any of the opportunities denied to her younger brother, Dill.

Dill’s accident happened on Alex’s watch and there is absolutely nothing Alex can ever do to change the consequences of that one, brief lapse in concentration. Alex’s case isn’t helped by the fact that instead of watching Dill, Alex had been preoccupied in the bushes with her boyfriend at the time, Finn. As a result, there’s nothing Alex can ever do to repair the damage done to her relationship with her father, a man who has seemingly done his best to keep Alex at arm’s length from her old life.

I really felt for Alex when writing Letting You Go, I think mainly because she is so identifiable. She’s just a nice, decent girl who made an easy mistake as a seventeen year old that, for all the wishing in the world, she can’t ever take back. A decade on, Alex is carrying her guilt around with her because that’s all she can do to pay penance somehow.

Keeping a low profile living hundreds of miles away was going okay for Alex, sort of. But when her mother falls ill Alex has to face up to her father again, the town she left behind and the old ghosts she simply can’t hide from any more.

But Alex isn’t the only one with a past she’d do anything to change. In many ways, Alex’s preoccupation with her own inadequacies has blindsided her. She’s surrounded by secrets she never sensed were there before. Even her father and sister seem to be holding out on her.

Throughout the course of Alex’s journey, she learns that she doesn’t know all there is to know about the people around her, that she isn’t the only Foster who has inadvertently hurt the ones they love, and that there were other factors influencing the course of events that led up to Dill’s accident that day. That said, forgiving those individuals turns out to be far easier than forgiving herself.

Alex has to learn how to stand tall again. How to not shy away and hide from the love in her life, but to fight for it.

Letting You Go by Anouska Knight is out now (Mira, £7.99) .

Picnics in Hyde Park- Nikki Moore

The Blurb

The last story in the fun & flirty #LoveLondon series from exciting new chick lit author Nikki Moore! The perfect novel for reading in the sunshine… and falling in love with London.

A summer to remember…or forget?

When Zoe Harper returns to the UK after five long years in New York, the last thing she expects is to find her younger sister Melody jobless, homeless, broke and dumped. Unfortunately, life has a way of delivering the unexpected. She should know that, given her ex-fiancé Greg’s faithless behaviour.

Filled with rage and determined to get revenge on the infamous Reilly brothers for her sister’s heartbreak, as well as get some answers, Zoe hatches plan Nannygate. Unfortunately that means moving in with the gorgeous but uncaring music producer Matt Reilly to be nanny to his two adorable, complicated children. But something isn’t adding up, and over the course of the hot London summer, she starts to think that perhaps Matt isn’t so bad after all.

Let down by his last nanny and weighed down with guilt about his wife’s death three years before, wealthy but camera-shy Matt has spent a long time pushing people away, including his own kids. His stunning new nanny challenges him every single day in completely different ways, but maybe that isn’t such a bad thing?

But what happens when you open your heart, and someone isn’t who you thought they were? And can it really be true love when it’s on the rebound, and starts off with a plan for revenge?

The Review

2015 could quite possibly be renamed 'the year I raved about Nikki Moore's Love London series'.  I'm pretty sure everyone I know is sick of me saying how much I enjoyed the five novella length books (my favourite being Valentine's on Primrose Hill ).  I featured Picnics in Hyde Park as my Waiting on Wednesday a few weeks ago and I was so excited to be able to read the final instalment of the series at last.

This time we're following Zoe and Matt's story.  After Zoe's sister Melody is rapidly dismissed from her job as nanny to Matt's children without so much as an explanation, Zoe is keen to get revenge.  When the opportunity arises to take over Melody's position, she grabs it with both hands, keen to gain information that will bring him into disrepute.  However, the more she gets to know Matt, the more she likes him...can she follow through with her plan?  Or will love get in the way?

I really enjoyed this novel length book and found myself getting swept along by the plot, especially the story about Matt's late wife Helen. I really wanted to know exactly what had happened to her!  Whilst not a mystery as such, there were clues dropped in alluding to how she died and I was desperate to know why Matt clammed up every time she was mentioned.   Matt's children were adorable, I wanted to wrap Aimee up and give her a hug and tell her everything would be OK in the end. 

It was also fabulous to find out a little bit more about the characters met in previous Love London books, Nikki Moore managed to cleverly weave them into Picnics in Hyde Park without it being clumsy or clunky. 

The romance and relationship between Zoe and Matt sizzled and there were some red hot scenes between the two of them, especially with the wool jacket involved!  All in all they were a likable couple and the fact there were some snarky comments and disagreements made them more believable.

The only niggle for me was when things that were obvious were being spelled out, especially in relation to childcare, safeguarding and education.  I'm not sure if this was irritating to me because my day job is in childcare or because it felt a bit unnecessary, but that was the only negative for me in what was a highly enjoyable novel. 

I'm reluctant to say farewell to this series, but can only thank Nikki Moore for writing her heart out to produce contemporary romances which are a love story of a couple within a love story for a place.  My visits to London via her books have been a real delight, a highlight of my summer. 

I love, love, love the Love London series!

Picnics in Hyde Park is out now, published by Harper Impulse.

With thanks to the author who provided me with a copy of this book in return for an unbiased review.
 

Question and Answer with Katharine Swartz

I was lucky enough to pose some questions to Katherine Swartz on her recent release ‘The Lost Garden’.  Here's what she had to say...

 

 

How long did The Lost Garden take to write?

 

I started a first draft three years ago, and got to the halfway point before I decided it wasn’t working. When I figured out what was wrong [a  character needed to change] it went much more quickly, and I managed to complete it in just a few months.

 

How challenging is it to write a dual timeframe novel, compared to writing just one story?

 

The most challenging part is making each of the two stories compelling, and also having them inform one another without being repetitive or stretch credibility too far.

 

You've also had huge success with M and B- are there any similarities between your romance books and your women's fiction releases?

 

Writing for Mills & Boon has helped me to tighten my writing and focus on strong emotional conflicts for characters. A lot of people think writing romance is easy, but writing good, compelling, believable, and emotional romance is quite difficult. I think I’ve learned something with every book I’ve written.

 

Are you a reader as well as a writer?  If so, recommend me a book!

 

Yes, definitely, I absolutely love reading.  Recently I've read I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh and Defending Jacob by William Landay.  Both highly recommended!

 

The Lost Garden is out now, published by Lion fiction.

 

In Bloom- Matthew Crow

I was sent a review copy of In Bloom a long time ago.  Probably over a year ago, in fact.  And although many bloggers who have similar taste in fiction to myself said they'd really loved Matthew Crow's novel, it had remained languishing on my bookcase waiting to be read.  Over the Christmas period I started boxing up my books ready to move house, and In Bloom caught my eye.  I started skimming the first few pages and before I knew it I'd finished the whole book!

So here are my thoughts on In Bloom...

The Blurb

A poignant and unexpectedly funny novel about Francis - one of the best and bravest teenage boy narrators since Adrian Mole. This is an emotionally honest story about wanting the very best from life, even when life shows you how very bad things can be.

Francis Wootton's first memory is of Kurt Cobain's death, and there have been other hardships closer to home since then. At fifteen years old he already knows all about loss and rejection - and to top it all off he has a permanently broke big brother, a grandma with selective memory (and very selective social graces) and a mum who's at best an acquired taste. Would-be poet, possible intellectual and definitely wasted in Tyne and Wear, Francis has grown used to figuring life out on his own.Lower Fifth is supposed to be his time, the start of an endless horizon towards whatever-comes-next. But when he is diagnosed with leukaemia that wide-open future suddenly narrows, and a whole new world of worry presents itself.There's the horror of being held back a year at school, the threat of imminent baldness, having to locate his best shirt in case a visiting princess or pop-star fancies him for a photo-op . . . But he hadn't reckoned on meeting Amber - fierce, tough, one-of-a-kind Amber - and finding a reason to tackle it all - the good, the bad and everything in between - head on. 

In Bloom is a bright, funny, painful and refreshing novel about wanting the very best from life, even when life shows you how very bad it can be. It is a novel about how to live.  

The Review

When I first heard about In Bloom, I was attracted to it's title.  I'm in my thirties (however much I try to deny it, I really am) and I loved Nirvana as a teen.  They were part of the soundtrack of my not-so-misspent youth.  On a personal level, I had an affinity to this one right away because it took me back to that fragile adolescent period.  Weirdly, I love books that remind me of the pain and trauma of puberty.  They remind me I can survive ANYTHING.

Plus the edition I have has the most sumptuous black, silver and blue cover.  Honestly, it's divine.

Francis, the protagonist, is dealing with everything all teenagers have to cope with- love, lust, self-confidence (or lack of)- but also has a diagnosis of leukaemia.  In Bloom follows Francis as he undergoes treatment.

There's a lot of potential for this sort of plot to be depressing, because let's face it, life-threatening illnesses aren't exactly cheery reading.  So it says a lot about the author (and their writing ability) when they manage to get the balance between humour, sensitivity and storytelling bang on.  Matthew Crow wasn't an author I was familiar with before-I'd never read anything else by him and wasn't sure what to expect- but he portrays the mother/son and sibling relationships in the most exquisite way.  As a mother myself, there were moments where the thumping pain deep within my chest threatened to break right through in empathy for both Francis and Amber's Mums.

And that's another thing.  The relationship between Francis and Amber will break your heart.  Just so you know.

There have been comparisons between this and John Green's The Fault in our Stars, and having read both I can see why.   But to bundle all books which share a genre together would be wrong, and if people are put off reading this by the cancer/teen romance aspect similarities then they're missing out on some wonderfully intuitive and touching British fiction.

By the time I reached the final page, I felt like I'd been through a mangle, but kind of in a good way.  If you read it, you'll know what I mean.