Book Review - The Happy Hour by Cressida McLaughlin - #HolidayReading Tenerife

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Title: The Happy Hour

Author: Cressida McLaughlin

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication Date: 9th May 2025

Rating: 4 Stars

Jess is happy working in Greenwich market selling trinkets to well-heeled locals and excitable tourists.

Then one Sunday, Jess is thrown together with handsome, funny Ash, as they chase a pickpocket through the market, and before long they are making a habit of running into each other at the same time each week.

Jess starts to realize that their hour together is the brightest part of her life. But Ash isn’t telling her everything – can she discover the truth before it’s too late?

I thoroughly enjoyed this story set in Greenwich amongst the many Greenwich market traders. 

And what a varied bunch they are, while being a totally fabulous community that Jess is part of. 

I love how she is always happy to help others, even if she isn't willing to let people get too close to her. 

And then Ash enters her life and for an hour a week while she is with him, she is really happy. 

I also really loved Ash, and he slotted into life in and around the market almost seamlessly. 

In a story that touches on tough issues, there are also plenty of the simple pleasures in life, such as flying a kite. 

Really entertaining, I loved reading this story

Thank you to HarperCollins and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop by Jaimie Admans - #HolidayReading Tenerife

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Title: Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop

Author: Jaimie Admans

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Publication Date: 26th May 2025

Rating: 5 Stars

In a shop full of stories, some magic is real.

Mickey Teasdale loves her quaint curiosity shop, where every item feels magical to her. She loves imagining the past owners of her knick-knacks and telling her made-up tales to customers, but lately, the magic has dimmed; the shop feels cluttered, and even her stories seem as worn as the items she sells.

Everything changes when the grumpiest customer Mickey’s ever met—single dad Ren Montague—walks in with his surly teen daughter, Ava. Ren hates mess and clutter and prefers order and calm, but he'll do anything to see Ava smile. Yet, something shifts in him when he meets Mickey, who seems like she stepped out of her very own fairy tale.

When Ava discovers a secret diary, hidden from years long ago, she and Mickey believe it must have once belonged to a real-life mermaid! Ever sceptical, Ren tries to protect Ava from disappointment, but as they unravel the mystery together, something special happens…

Ren learns that happy ever afters still exist if you're brave enough to look for them, and Mickey discovers that real-life can sometimes be way more magical than anything she could have ever imagined.

Mermaids are definitely real! I'm totally convinced after reading this. 

Especially loving the mermaids diary that Mickey finds in her shop and decides to investigate with Ren and Ava. 

Ava is a teen, who is loving Mickey's mermaid's treasure trove of a shop, and Ren is her single father who seems to insult Mickey and her shop continually. 

But as the story progresses, there is clearly something magical happening with regards all of their feelings. 

I loved seeing the changes in the characters as everything happens, and I also love Mickey's shop and her sense of whimsy 

I was once again enchanted by Ever After Street, and felt like I was reading a fairy tale for adults.  This is such an amazing series, that I never want it to end.  I devoured this book in a few short hours poolside, only really aware of the fact that I needed to keep moving to get more shade, other than that oblivious to my surroundings. 

I'm not normally a fan of letters / diaries that are found from the past, but this one sucked me in instantly and i was as invested if not more so than the characters. 

An utterly brilliant and highly enjoyable book. More please! 

Thank you to Boldwood Books and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - The Roommate Experiment by Camilla Isley

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Title: The Roommate Experiment

Author: Camilla Isley

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Publication Date: 27th May 2025

Rating: 4 Stars

Could there be room for attraction?

Hunter has secretly been in love with her best friend’s brother Dylan for years, despite barely registering as a blip on his radar. She’s not even in the friend zone—more like friend zone adjacent. But her luck is about to change: Dylan is taking over her spare room, and she's being promoted to roommate. Could this be the moment Dylan finally notices her?

Not so fast. When Dylan moves in, he carries more than just boxes—he brings complications. Suddenly, the dream of living under the same roof turns into a daily struggle. Dylan is off-limits, for reasons Hunter couldn’t have anticipated, and the closer they get, the harder it becomes to ignore her feelings.

But Hunter’s determined to keep her heart in check—no matter how difficult the task. She just has to avoid ogling him in a towel. Definitely don’t imagine what’s under the towel. And try not to swoon when he bakes cookies.

But after he saves her from a terrible date and they’re forced to share a sofa bed at his parents’ house, her emotions reach a breaking point. She’ll have to either move on or move out. Will she tell him the truth—or lose him forever?

The Roommate Experiment is a roommates-to-lovers, forced proximity, STEMinist rom-com perfect for fans of Lynn Painter, Sarah Adams, and Abby Jimenez.

I'm very conflicted about this book  - don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, and by the time the action and flirtation heated up, I was unable to put it down. 

But it runs along the exact same time line as If The Ring Fits, so if you have read the previous book in the series (which I did only a few weeks ago so it was still fresh in my mind), then you know exactly who will end up with you (as it was revealed in the previous book), and other bits with the friendship groups, are all things I have already read from one perspective, so didn't' really need to see it again.   

It's one of those devices that authors use occasionally in series that always bugs me and I'm just not keen on. 

That doesn't make the book any less great, just made it harder for me to totally enjoy it as much as I normally enjoy a Camilla Isley novel.   I feel like you need to have read at least the previous book to fully understand all the references to Rowena, so it probably can't stand alone, but equally had I skipped the middle book I would have possibly enjoyed it more. 

Hence I'm totally torn. 

It's a very slow build of the romantic tension between Hunter and Dylan. Hunter's dates to keep her mind off the fact she is now living with the guy she has been secretly in love with for over 10 years, are hilariously bad.  

Dylan's relationship with Olivia is hard to read, I just didn't take to her, and felt for him a lot, especially once he realises he isn't as into it as he should be.  But some of his dilemmas really showed him as a truly lovely guy. 

I love the characters, I especially loved the final quarter of the book, and there are many many moments to laugh at, as Dylan and Hunter get used to living in the same apartment, with some memorable scenes. 

On the whole I really did enjoy the book. 

Thank you to Boldwood Books and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - Everyone In The Group Chat Dies by L. M. Chilton - #HolidayReading Tenerife

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Title: Everyone In The Group Chat Dies

Author: L. M. Chilton

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Head of Zeus

Publication Date: 13th March 2025

Rating: 4 Stars

Kirby Cornell needs a break from everything:

- Her crumbling flat in the sleepy town of Crowhurst (famous for its award-winning sausage rolls and a second-rate serial killer from the 90s).

- Her dead-end job.

- Her sleazy landlord.

- Her slobbish housemates.

- And, most of all, the terrible thing they did.

Luckily, that hasn't caught up with her just yet. Until a new message on their old group chat pops up:

Everyone in the group chat will die.

It's the first text her ex-flatmate and social-media sleuth Esme has sent for ages, but that's not the really weird thing.

The really weird thing is, Esme died twelve months ago…

Don't miss the new laugh-out-loud thriller from L.M. Chilton, Everyone in the Group Chat Dies – a murder mystery that fuses the flatmate comedy of Friends with the serial-killer thrills of I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Well this was highly enjoyable, and amazingly I didn't manage to predict the final outcome. 

Told in two timelines, the previous year and current year, we get to learn the truth about various happenings in this small fairly sleepy town. 

Kirby and her flatmates are central to everything, although I was getting Dylan and Dave confused at times (2 D names in the same flat share leads to that!), it certainly made for an interesting read. 

There are some really odd dynamics at play, and Kirby is a bit of a bumbling, impulsive sort of new internet detective, who is trying to find Esme in the previous year time line, and find out why she is getting messages from Esme in the current time line. 

What very soon becomes apparent is that if you were flatmates with Kirby, your life may be over sooner than you think. 

This was an enjoyable story, and gave me a good indication that I'm likely to be happy to read more from the author in the future too. 

Thank you to Head of Zeus and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - Book Boyfriend by Lucy Vine - #HolidayReading Tenerife

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Title: Book Boyfriend

Author: Lucy Vine

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: 19th June 2025

Rating: 5 Stars

Jemma has lived a thousand lives through books. The only life she isn’t living is her own.

That is, until the day she finds a note from a stranger in her favourite library book. When she replies, the pair begin a longhand conversation about their love of novels that sees Jemma finally coming out of her shell. Is she ready to fall in love for the first time – with someone she’s never met?

 

Clara has always run away from her problems, but this might finally be one she can’t escape.

Everyone wants to know what happened to Clara in America – but Clara isn’t talking. Instead she’s focusing all her energy obsessing over a hot new actor, starring in the TV adaptation of her twin Jemma's favourite book. Soon, Clara is reading every interview, trawling his social media, and following him to showbiz parties in the hopes he’ll notice she’s The One.

 

As the sisters fall hard for two men they’ve never met, it’s time to ask the question: Can either relationship survive the real world?

What an entertaining story this was, featuring fraternal twins Jemma and Clara. 

These are not overly close twins, and in fact seem to really dislike each other at times, or at any rate they are like chalk and cheese. 

Both though have more in common than perhaps they realise, thus causing their clashes. 

I loved Jemma and her flatmates, she is bookish, quiet and intriguingly seems to have a book boyfriend that she is exchanges notes with in a copy of a library book. 

Clara is rather flighty and after 5 years in the states has returned to the UK rather suddenly. She seems to have very few clues about adulting, and is also fixated on Milo an actor in a new TV adaption of Jemma's favourite book. 

And it's Clara's pursuit of Milo that leads to large parts of the humour in this book which was really amusing. 

This is light hearted, really entertaining and just a whole lot of fun to read. I had a great time reading this book and seemed to whiz through it fairly fast too. 

I'm starting to really love Lucy Vine's books and already curious what her next one will be. 

Thank you to  Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - A Recipe For Love by Amelia Berry - #HolidayReading Tenerife

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Title: A Recipe For Love

Author: Amelia Berry 

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Hera

Publication Date: 13th March 2025

Rating: 5 Stars

Cinderella meets Bake-Off in this contemporary rags-to-riches romcom

From the moment they meet, Bella and Adam know this is no ordinary holiday romance.

This is the real deal.

But when they find out Adam’s father has died and he has inherited the penniless Lowbridge Loch estate, their lives are changed in an instant.

Bella suddenly finds herself dealing with crumbling castles, battling baronesses and a tiny community of eccentric characters. Rising to the challenge, Bella has an idea to save Lowbridge Loch. She will create The Highland Cookery School.

But will her plans sink like a souffle when her skills are put to the test?

And can Bella and Adam’s love survive the pressure of saving the estate?

An irresistible, feel-good romance perfect for fans of Jessica Redland, Holly Martin and Heidi Swain

What a promising start to a new series this is. I loved Bella and Adam from the start and was rooting for their whirllwind romance to last.

However when Adam becomes the new Baron of Lowbridge after his father suddenly dies, their plans are up in the air and they have to adjust to their new normal. 

A not so warm welcome for Bella from the two ladies of Lowbridge house, but yet somehow she seems to be a breath of fresh air for the property and the local community too. 

While Adam is struggling with his new role, Bella is setting up her Highland Cookery School amongst other ideas.  

Their first test session of it is very funny, as are various other moments in the book. 

This was a joy to read and I loved every second of it and am already looking forward to the next book. 

Thank you to Hera and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - An Italian Wedding Adventure by Leonie Mack

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Title: An Italian Wedding Adventure

Author: Leonie Mack

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Publication Date: 9th May 2025

Rating: 4 Stars

Can old flames reignite under the hot Italian sun? 🌞

When the destination wedding agency Sophie works for merges with an adventure travel company to create unique ceremonies for outdoor enthusiasts, Sophie is horrified to discover her gruff ex-boyfriend Andreas works there. Even worse: he's been assigned as her guide for a scouting trip to Italy, in search of the perfect location for a summit-top wedding.

Thrown together to make another couple’s romantic dreams come true, all Sophie can think about are the dreams she once had for them. But when the truth of what actually happened eight long years ago finally emerges, will Sophie risk imagining a happily-ever-after and opening her heart to Andreas again…?

Brand new from the bestselling author of A Wedding in the Sun!

What an excellent concept and start to what is promising to be an entertaining new series. 

I absolutely love the idea of adventure weddings and this book combines my love of drama,  romance,  thrills, travel and a gorgeous guy into one irresistible story. 

I really enjoyed getting to know Sophie and Andreas and seeing how they interact now they have come across each other again after many years. 

We get to see how they have changed and why they are the people they have become , and it is clear there is still a spark. 

I also loved the scouting of locations for this climbing wedding as well as the day itself. 

I am already looking forward to the next book in this series, and really enjoyed this first book a great deal. 

Thank you to Boldwood Books and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - Right Place, Right Time by Ali McNamara - #HolidayReading Tenerife

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Title: Right Place, Right Time

Author: Ali McNamara

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Publication Date: 19th June 2025

Rating: 5 Stars

Could this be the moment they've both been waiting for?

Eve has always loved antiques.

She loves the way an item from the past can offer a glimpse of another world, of another time. It's why she painstakingly researches the stories behind every item in Rainy Day Antiques, her little Cambridge shop, to share with their new owners. It's her way of honouring the past and cherishing the present.

Adam is firmly focussed on the future.

He's only in town to sort his late grandfather's affairs. When he discovers that his grandfather hired Eve to manage his house clearance, he can only hope her methods don't delay his return to London.

What neither of them know is that Adam's grandfather chose Eve for a reason. It's finally the right place and the right time for the two of them to meet. But what did he have planned for them?

Another rollicking read from Ali McNamara.  This was amazing. 

I mean as per normal with this author you do need to suspend all disbelief at things that may not be quite as they seem, as once again there is a hint of I'll say magical realism within the pages, unsure if that is the correct term, but definitely extra ordinary. 

And it's all to do with Adam, Eva and Eve's shop in Cambridge, set in the fabulous Clockmaker's Court. 

From the moment they meet for the first time, it seems as though they have been drawn to each other, but the reasonings for it are to be discovered. 

They have far more in common that first meets they eye, and I loved discovering their stories and those of their family members. 

I'm reluctant to say anything else, for fear of spoiling this wonderful book for you, but rest assured it will get you thinking, smiling, possibly crying, and will totally hook you in,. 

Just another fabulous book from this author. 

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - Beach Bodies by Sienna Sharpe

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Title: Beach Bodies

Author: Sienna Sharpe

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Transworld Digital

Publication Date: 19th June 2025

Rating: 5 Stars

Bella Mackie meets Emily Henry in this sharp, spicy 'thromance' about a woman who is determined to make toxic people pay for the damage they do, and the handsome stranger who is on her tail.

⭐ Falling in love can be murder… ⭐

No one in Lily Lennox’s life can understand why each of the past five summers, she has shut her successful business and chosen instead to be paid minimum wage life-guarding at the exclusive Riovan Wellness Resort in a sun-soaked Caribbean island.

Fortunately for her, they also aren’t aware of the mysterious deaths that have occurred on the island every time she’s there.

Lily always tries to avoid bringing attention to herself. After all, if your mission is murder, it’s best not to draw suspicious eyes. But this year (ridiculously gorgeous) guest Daniel Black is asking a few too many inconvenient questions.

Can she manage her growing attraction towards him at the same time as getting away with murder?

What a totally addictive story this was, which stayed on my mind for a while afterwards too. 

I absolutely loved Lily's motivations, and just how devious she is.  And I also agree with her feelings on the beauty / wellness industry, especially with regards how women are made to feel about their bodies. 

I was never totally sure how it would all play out, it definitely was unpredictable to me and I absolutely loved the clear headed ness, rules and decision making abilities involved in Lily's style of vigilante justice. 

I definitely did not expect the ending at all.  While most of the action is taking part in an elite resort in the Caribbean, that had me wishing I had saved this for a beach read, as it's definitely a perfect holiday read. 

Also loved Lily's clear attraction to the one guest, that is potentially going to cause her no end of trouble, as if someone is determined to get away with causing another suspicious death, she should perhaps stay away from journalists. 

A totally fabulous debut novel and I'm eager to see what this author writes next. 

Thank you to Transworld Digital and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - A Place in the Sun by Jo Thomas

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Title: A Place in the Sun

Author: Jo Thomas

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Transworld Digital

Publication Date: 19th June 2025

Rating: 5 Stars

It's never too late to find where you belong...

Thea knew the holiday house her late husband Marco bought in Tuscany wasn't pristine. But when she relocates to Italy for the summer with her children, she's shocked by how much work Casa Luna needs. And she only has six weeks to fix it up ready to sell! Her only option is to ask the tight-knit Italian community for help.

In return, Thea and her children become involved in the community kitchen, working alongside handsome chef Giovanni and three very competitive nonnas. Gradually, Thea begins to open up to the people around her for the first time in a long while. But just as she's beginning to wonder whether this small Tuscan town could become a new place to call home, a surprise visitor turns everything on its head . . .

If you are a cat named Garfield, then you will be salivating at this novel, and in fact pawing your way through the pages, hoping the descriptions will be coming to life and giving you your favourite food! 

For at the heart of this book is Lasagne, proper Tuscan lasagne, with three nonnas all thinking their recipe is the best and all determined to welcome Thea to Tuscany and to Casa Luna with Lasagnes.

In fact there are a few scenes in this clearly written with the humour of the The Vicar of Dibley's 3 Christmases episode in mind.  At least that's what I was reminded of, while Thea knows she needs to be polite, while really not being able to eat any more! 

It's not just lasagne though, there is a whole of of Italian food in this that will have your mouth watering, and leave you feeling very hungry the entire time you are reading. 

This is Jo Thomas at her destination and foodie romance best. This book is filled with humour, evocative descriptions of food and also the small village that Thea has a house to do up in, and their community.  

The three Nonnas are a comedy triple act that had me laughing the entire time. Starting the book as rivals, it's interesting to see the effect Thea (and her kids) have on them. 

Thea is a widow, and this house in Italy as her husband Marco's purchase, and they were going to restore it together. But life changes and now she is trying to do her best by him, while keeping her children happy and wondering whether it may be time to move on too. 

This is a delicious book to devour, its easy to read and made my train journey melt into oblivion of background movement, while I was totally between the pages and living life alongside Thea. 

I absolutely loved every second of this book, it's another winner for me from Jo Thomas, an author that never lets me down.  Just exquisite. 

Thank you to Transworld Digital and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.