Book Review - A Change Of Heart at the Vintage Dress Shop by Annie Darling

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Title: A Change of Heart at the Vintage Dress Shop

Author: Annie Darling

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Publication Date: 27th June 2024

Rating: 4 Stars

Cressida Collins is the queen of makeovers. With a well-placed stitch, button or seam, she can transform any frock in The Vintage Dress Shop and give customers their Cinderella moment.

Like her beautifully organised workroom under the eaves, Cress's life away from the shop is just as orderly and mapped out. But when her boyfriend of fifteen years drops a bombshell, it explodes all the carefully laid plans Cress had for her future.

It's going to take more than needle and thread to put Cress's own life back together. Will she ever be brave enough to say goodbye to her old dreams and start over?

But after designing a dress for a customer and transforming her into the woman she always wanted to be, Cress realises that it can be fun not to follow a pattern. Then there's her blossoming friendship with Miles, a very handsome and very sexy film director...

Cress is about to discover that leaving a few loose threads might be the best way to mend her broken heart...

A wonderfully uplifting, funny and heartfelt summer romance that will whisk you away to the haven of The Vintage Dress Shop. Perfect for fans of Sarah Morgan, Heidi Swain and Phillipa Ashley.

I don't know how I managed to miss out on the first book in this Vintage Dress Shop series, but I'm very glad I have joined the series at book two, as this was so enjoyable.  And it can definitely be read as a standalone novel.

I loved this shop in Primrose Hill, and the group of people who work there, who are all totally mad about vintage clothing, and vintage dresses in particular.  And Cressida is the seamstress, who typically deals with alterations and repairs. 

But when a customer comes into the shop having a body image crisis, Cressida feels for her and offers to make her a bespoke dress.  And that starts to give Cressida some ambition and ideas of other things she can do. 

At the same time she is having doubts over her 15 year relationship with her boyfriend. They were school day sweethearts and both still live with their parents, and seem to spend very little time together by themselves.  I really didn't take to him at all. 

I enjoyed getting to know all the girls in the shop, and their various dynamics. And this was just a really gentle and highly entertaining book.   I'm already looking up to catching up with the The Vintage Dress Shop crew in their next book. 

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