👩‍🍳Caterer Lucinda Green knows something is missing from her life👩‍🍳@LizanneLloyd reviews #contemporaryromance The Only Exception by @ClaraVal, for Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT

Today’s team review is from Liz.

Liz blogs here https://lizannelloyd.wordpress.com/

Rosie’s Book Review Team

Liz has been reading The Only Exception by Claire Huston

The Only Exception by Claire Huston

Lucinda’s busy professional life running a catering firm has caused her to put her personal life on hold. Still living in the same house as her ex-fiancé, who betrayed her, she doesn’t believe true love exists, so when her mother phones to say she is getting married again Lucinda is confused.  Meanwhile she has a dramatic encounter in a lift with a handsome actor when they jointly revive a lady who has collapsed.

Alex has steady work in a successful TV series, but he still feels insecure renting a house in his 40s with a young actress he likes but does not love. When he meets Lucinda there are sparks and he keeps thinking about her, even though she is amazingly annoying. It is good to see the relationship from the viewpoint of each of them in turn.

Circumstances throw the couple together again and they discover they share similar values and sense of humour. When both experience professional problems they are each able to provide practical help, but their misunderstandings continue.

The characters in The Only Exception, especially in Alex’s family, are so believable and added to my enjoyment of the plot. A delightful story of modern life where work stresses, scandal and social media all play their part. And of course, a delicious sprinkling of romance.

Book description

Lucinda Green knows something is missing from her life. But what? Her catering business is enjoying modest success and she loves her cosy house, even if she does have to share it with her irritating ex-fiancé.

Whatever’s making her unsettled and edgy, Lucinda’s certain that a lack of romance isn’t the problem. How could it be when she doesn’t believe in true love?

But Lucinda’s beliefs are shaken by a series of electric encounters with Alex Fraser, a newly notorious actor who gradually proves himself to be infuriatingly funny and smart, as well as handsome.

Not that any of that matters. Because Lucinda doesn’t believe in all that ‘The One’ nonsense. That’s the rule.

But doesn’t every rule have an exception?

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Love And Life In The Cotswolds. @LizanneLloyd reviews #Romance Elle’s A to Z Of Love by @ClaraVal, for Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT

Today’s team review is from Liz. She blogs here https://lizannelloyd.wordpress.com/

Liz has been reading Elle’s A to Z Of Love by Claire Huston

If you enjoy spending time in an idyllic but realistic English village you will love this novel. When Elle Bea returns from University she is welcomed home to Haileybrook by her rather odd family and close friends. Her love life is non-existent but she will soon be travelling to Europe with her lively friend, Serena.  However, memories and old ties are entangling her. She cares deeply for old friend, Toby, who took care of her when she was a shy schoolgirl, but she still can’t stop thinking about Adam, the handsome publican’s son she had briefly dated.

I found Elle’s attitude rather irritating. Her dynamic mother has sapped her confidence and her life seems to be permanently on hold. The redeeming feature is the series of emails she exchanges with Zach, a charming young man she met briefly in the University Library, who is now living with his girlfriend in the States. Their frank remarks tell us a great deal about their personalities and interests. The events in Haileybrook such as a wedding and a country fayre are recoded by Elle as part of her job as a local journalist and we encounter a number of interesting characters such as the elderly Mrs Cooper who tries to provide Elle with guidance.

The usual misunderstandings and foolish mistakes are delightful resolved in an exciting conclusion.

Haileybrook, a beautiful village in the peaceful Cotswolds countryside, is most people’s idea of heaven on earth.

Born and raised in this small slice of paradise, Elle Bea can’t wait to leave.  It should be easy, but every time she packs her bags for exotic adventures, old loves and loyalties pull her back.

Will Elle be forced to forget her dreams of far-flung places and epic romance, or can she grab one last chance to have it all?

An uplifting, romantic story about friends, family and the relationships that make a place a home.

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Celebrating 6 Years Of Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT With Team Member Robbie @bakeandwrite

Recently we celebrated our review team’s six year anniversary by revealing fourteen of the team’s favourite books.

You can find out which books they were in part one and part two.

I invited some of my team members to tell us more about being part of the book reviewing team.

Welcome to Robbie Cheadle, who also writes book reviews at Robbie’s Inspiration Blog

I have always been a reader. I read books at such a fast rate when I was a young girl that my own four library cards were not enough. I used to use my younger sister’s three library cards as well as my own [Cath was not a big reader back then and preferred to visit her friends down the road than read] and I still had to make two trips a week to the local library. That mean I read at least fourteen books a week. I used to ride to the library on my bicycle which my dad fitted wit a basket for my books.

Even back then, I never read the same books as my friends. I read strange books like Fattipuffs and Thinifers by André Maurois, Helter Skelter, the Charles Manson story by Susan Atkins and all the Eva Ibbotson books, which I didn’t think were unusual, but my friends definitely did. I lived in a Catholic community and books about witches, wizards, dark magic, banshees, and other magical creatures were not encouraged. When I was ten, I ran out of books to read in the children’s section of the library, so I resorted to reading my mom’s books behind the couch. My reads included The Shining and Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. My peer group were not reading these books in the fifth and sixth grade.

The result of my unusual and advanced reading tastes was that I never participated in reading groups at school. I was a “lone wolf” reader and was never interested enough in popular peer group reads to change this position.

As an adult I never belonged to book clubs as they seemed to involve more socializing and drinking of wine that discussion of the books I like to read. As a result, I never joined one, so I don’t know if my views are actually fact or not.

When I started to blog, I quickly saw that a lot of readers shared their reviews on-line. There were all sorts of book reviewing groups among blogging groups and on Goodreads where people read the same book and discussed their opinions of the books and the writing style. This interested me and I started following lots of book bloggers and reading lots and lots of book reviews. One book blogger that particularly interested me with her detailed reviews was Olga Nunez. I realized that Olga belonged to an on-line book reviewing club called Rosie’s Book Reviews and was sufficiently interested to find Rosie’s wonderful blog and follow many of her reviewers.

Often, more than one reviewer would read the same book offered to the club and I loved reading the different viewpoints. All the reviewers have a different reviewing style and I learned to look for, and appreciate, different things in books. This has helped my own writing as well as my own book reviewing process. I decided to ask Rosie if I could join her book reviewing team and she graciously added me to her group. I still have rather different tastes in books and read and review a lot of classics, but I do like to read at last one book a month from Rosie’s lovely list. I always look for other reviews of the same book by other team members as I am fascinated to learn what they enjoyed about a book I have read and what they did not enjoy. I have found that certain of the team members share similar tastes to me, so I look out for books they have reviewed and sometimes request them from Rosie.

Some of the recent books and authors I have read and enjoyed during my time as a Rosie’s book reviewer are as follows:

• The Zelda Richardson series (The Vermeer Deception being the most recent book) by Jennifer S. Alderson;
• Congeal, Night Service and Burntbridge boys by John F Leonard;
• Upon Us Post-Apocalyptic Romance (Hope & Darkness Series) by Blakely Chorpenning;
• Chills & Creeps Vol 1: Eight Scary Stories by Nick Clausen;
• Secrets of the Galapagos by Sharon Marchisello; and
• Art & Soul by Claire Huston.

I enjoy being part of Rosie’s team and have discovered some great new authors this way. She had a splendid team of reviewers whose opinions on books I value, including Rosie’s own reviews. If you like to read a wide variety of different genres and authors and like the idea of being part of a book reviewing team, then I would recommend this lovely group.

Thank you Robbie, I enjoy seeing all the different books that team members enjoy.