[REVIEW] How to Find Love in a Bookshop

title: How to Find Love in a Bookshop

author: Veronica Henry
genre: adult, contemporary, chick lit
published: July 10, 2018 by Penguin Books (first published May 19, 2016)
my copy: paperback, 352 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 3 / 5 stars
goodreads

"Absolutely delightful." --People 

The enchanting story of a bookshop, its grieving owner, a supportive literary community, and the extraordinary power of books to heal the heart 

Nightingale Books, nestled on the main street in an idyllic little village, is a dream come true for book lovers--a cozy haven and welcoming getaway for the literary-minded locals. But owner Emilia Nightingale is struggling to keep the shop open after her beloved father's death, and the temptation to sell is getting stronger. The property developers are circling, yet Emilia's loyal customers have become like family, and she can't imagine breaking the promise she made to her father to keep the store alive. 

There's Sarah, owner of the stately Peasebrook Manor, who has used the bookshop as an escape in the past few years, but it now seems there's a very specific reason for all those frequent visits. Next is roguish Jackson, who, after making a complete mess of his marriage, now looks to Emilia for advice on books for the son he misses so much. And the forever shy Thomasina, who runs a pop-up restaurant for two in her tiny cottage--she has a crush on a man she met in the cookbook section, but can hardly dream of working up the courage to admit her true feelings. 

Enter the world of Nightingale Books for a serving of romance, long-held secrets, and unexpected hopes for the future--and not just within the pages on the shelves. How to Find Love in a Bookshop is the delightful story of Emilia, the unforgettable cast of customers whose lives she has touched, and the books they all cherish.

bookshops are not just bookshops.

The title of this book and the bookshop setting are what caught my attention. I mean who wouldn't want to read about bookshops? Don't we all?

[REVIEW] The Dirty Book Club

title: The Dirty Book Club

author: Lisi Harrison
genre: adult fiction, chick lit
published: October 10, 2017 by Gallery Books
my copy: paperback, 313 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

You know you want to join. 

M.J. Stark's life is perfect. But behind her success, there is a debilitating sense of loneliness. So when her boyfriend offers her a new life in California, she gives it a try. Once there, M.J. is left to fend for herself in a small beach town, with only the company of her elderly neighbor, Gloria. 

One afternoon, M.J. discovers that Gloria has moved to Paris to honor a fifty-year-old pact. And in lieu of a good-bye, she's left an invitation to a secret club--one that reads only erotic books. Curious, M.J. accepts and meets the other members: Addie, who avoids responsibility at all costs. Britt, an overworked mom who's feeling lonely and desperate. And romantic Jules, whose fairy-tale life is slowly unraveling. As they bond over naughty bestsellers and the letters they inherit from the original club members, the strangers start to divulge the details of their own lives... and as they open up, they learn that friendship might be the key to rewriting their own stories.

[MINI REVIEWS] Crime Fiction Edition #1

title: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot #1)
author: Agatha Christie
genre: crime fiction
published: October 30, 2012 by William Morrow
format: paperback, 247 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | Fully Booked
rating: 3 / 5 stars
goodreads

Hercule Poirot solves his first case in the Agatha Christie novel that started it all, now in a fully restored edition that features a “missing chapter” along with commentary from Christie expert John Curran. 

Who poisoned the wealthy Emily Inglethorp and how did the murderer penetrate and escape from her locked bedroom? Suspects abound in the quaint village of Styles St. Mary—from the heiress's fawning new husband to her two stepsons, her volatile housekeeper, and a pretty nurse who works in a hospital dispensary. 

With impeccable timing, and making his unforgettable debut, the brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is on the case.

[MINI REVIEWS] Literary/Historical Fiction Edition #1

title: Lost in the Beehive
author: Michele Young-Stone
genre: literary fiction, historical
published: April 10, 2018 by Simon & Schuster
format: paperback, 320 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

From the author of Above Us Only Sky and The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, a touching new novel set in the 1960s about the power of friendship, love, and accepting your past in order to find a future. 

For nearly her entire life, Gloria Ricci has been followed by bees.  

They’re there when her mother loses twin children; when she first meets a neighborhood girl named Isabel, who brings out feelings in her that she knows she shouldn’t have; and when her parents, desperate to “help” her, bring her to the Belmont Institute, whose glossy brochures promise healing and peace. She tells no one, but their hum follows her as she struggles to survive against the Institute’s cold and damaging methods, as she meets an outspoken and unapologetic fellow patient named Sheffield Schoeffler, and as they run away, toward the freewheeling and accepting glow of 1960s Greenwich Village, where they create their own kind of family among the artists and wanderers who frequent the jazz bars and side streets.  

As Gloria tries to outrun her past, experiencing profound love—and loss—and encountering a host of unlikely characters, including her Uncle Eddie, a hard-drinking former boyfriend of her mother’s, to Madame Zelda, a Coney Island fortune teller, and Jacob, the man she eventually marries but whose dark side threatens to bring disaster, the bees remain. It’s only when she needs them most that Gloria discovers why they’re there.  

Moving from the suburbs of New Jersey to the streets of New York to the swamps of North Carolina and back again, Lost in the Beehive is a poignant novel about the moments that teach us, the places that shape us, and the people who change us.