Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy {RIP} #AugustBreak

Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan {book review}

Were you a sherbet lemon or chocolate lime fan? Penny chews or hard boiled sweeties (you do get more for your money that way)? The jangle of your pocket money . . . the rustle of the pink and green striped paper bag . . . Rosie Hopkins thinks leaving her busy London life, and her boyfriend Gerard, to sort out her elderly Aunt Lilian's sweetshop in a small country village is going to be dull. Boy, is she wrong. Lilian Hopkins has spent her life running Lipton's sweetshop, through wartime and family feuds. As she struggles with the idea that it might finally be time to settle up, she also wrestles with the secret history hidden behind the jars of beautifully coloured sweets. Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams - a novel - with recipes.

I loved Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny Colgan and picked this one up the day it came out. Another perfect summer read. It's easy going and a great story about making life changes. Although it's fiction I feel it shows that life can take some unexpected turns and we should just go with it! I am also excited because it has an advertisement for Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe! Already on my wish list!! ~LiSa

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss - the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

I think after it's third reading this surpasses Pride and Prejudice as my favorite Austen novel. In the past I would have listed them P&P first, Emma second, S&S third and the last 3 are just sorta bunched up together (I do like them, but not like I like these 3) but now I actually think Sense and Sensibility jumps to number 1. These characters feel real, they would have no problem stepping out of the book into the real world. They would fit right in. It's full of betrayal, love children, affairs, second marriages, etc.... It has everything that we love to gossip about now! I am writing as though everyone knows this story already. If you don't you

should!! It's very good!!

Chocolat by Joanne Harris A Book Review

Try me...Test me...Taste me.When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock – especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer’s wares as instruments of murder.Suddenly Vianne’s shop-cum-cafe means that there is somewhere for secrets to be whispered, grievances to be aired, dreams to be tested. But Vianne’s plans for an Easter Chocolate Festival divide the whole community in a conflict that escalates into a ‘Church not Chocolate’ battle. As mouths water in anticipation, can the solemnity of the Church compare with the pagan passion of a chocolate éclair?For the first time here is a novel in which chocolate enjoys its true importance, emerging as a moral issue, as an agent of transformation – as well as a pleasure bordering on obsession. Rich, clever and mischievous, this is a triumphant read.

I have been wanting to read this for a while, but hadn't gotten around to it. It's a quick easy summer read; full of magic and life lessons.

The mother and daughter come to a small town and open a chocolate store during Lent and the priest is not happy. One might want to say it was about good and evil, but really it's about the gray area between the two.

A very enjoyable read. I have seen parts of the movie so can't comment on a comparison. Although it has Johnny Depp in it so really it can't be too bad right?

Would recommend it!! If anyone else has read it I would love to hear your thoughts on it!! Please leave a comment!!!
~LiSa

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami ~ A Book Recommendation

movie tie in cover

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

Loved this book!! Haruki Murakami is on my top 5 favorite authors at the moment!!

A story of love life and death. A lot of people thought it was semi auto biographical but Murakami denies it. It reads like real life so I can see why the masses would want to think it was the love story of his life.

It's a story of what a person would do for love.

A story of coping with the ups and downs of relationships.

 I'm not sure I want to see the movie that has recently been made.

I really did enjoy Kafka on the Shore and had no idea what was happening in After Dark, but this one was ... dare I say ... beautiful.

It's not usually a word I use to describe a book, but it's the only word that suits it in my opinion.

I give this book 5 stars and would recommend it to anyone and everyone!!

~LiSa

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks ~~ A Quick Review

After U.S. Marine Logan Thibault finds a photograph of a smiling young woman buried in the dirt during his tour of duty in Iraq, he experiences a sudden streak of luck -- winning poker games and even surviving deadly combat. Only his best friend, Victor, seems to have an explanation for his good fortune: the photograph -- his lucky charm.

Back home in Colorado, Thibault can't seem to get the woman in the photograph out of his mind and he sets out on a journey across the country to find her. But Thibault is caught off guard by the strong attraction he feels for the woman he encounters in North Carolina - Elizabeth, a divorced mother -- and he keeps the story of the photo, and his luck, a secret. As he and Elizabeth embark upon a passionate love affair, his secret soon threatens to tear them apart -- destroying not only their love, but also their lives.
Filled with tender romance and terrific suspense, THE LUCKY ONE is an unforgettable story about the surprising paths our lives often take and the power of fate to guide us to true and everlasting love.

This book was dumb. It wasn't romantic or in anyway believable. I started it thinking this could go somewhere....but then it didn't. *spoiler* The ending was tied up nicely by killing off the bad guy. How convenient for everyone to have their happy ending.* I haven't read a lot of Nicholas Sparks, but what I have read I have always enjoyed so when this book was given to me I was more then happy to take it. I finished it and was just like WTF? It was just a nothing story, nothing to move me really. I would skip it if I was you, which I'm not you, but if I was I would skip it.
I would second Janet's recommendation of The Notebook or Stacy recommends The Last Song both by Nicholas Sparks!

Talking about: FOREIGN FRUIT by Jojo Moyes

Merham is a well-ordered 1950s seaside town: the kind of town in which everyone knows their place (and those who don’t are promptly put in it). Lottie Swift, an evacuee who has grown up with the respectable Holden family, loves Merham, while the Holdens’ daughter Celia chafes against the constraints of the town.
When a group of bohemians takes over Arcadia, a stark Art Deco house on the seafront, the girls are as drawn to its temptations as Merham’s citizens are appalled by them. They set in place a chain of events both within the Holden family and Merham itself which will have longstanding and tragic consequences for all concerned.
Now, almost fifty years on, Arcadia is returning to life, and its inhabitants stirring up strong feelings again. And prompting more than one person to look into their own romantic history and ask: Can you ever leave your past behind?

I am deep down a sucker for a good love story and after reading Jane Austen I have always found most of them, love stories that is fail to make me feel anything. Most love stories feel false to me, I like them to feel real. Ya know? Rattling on again, but my point is that this novel felt real to me. I was completely wrapped up in the characters and their lives. (I wouldn't compare this to Jane Austen I was just using her to make point.)

Foreign Fruit, won the RNA Novel of the Year award for 2003. I can say it was well deserved. I picked this book up for £1 at my local store; I liked it because of the cover. Yes, I do judge books by there cover, I can't help it! I also think it's a stupid saying because if I were to ever write a book I would make sure it had an awesome cover! For the sole purpose of selling it.
Back to the book. I think most people reflect on the choices they have made, good or bad and wonder "what if?" The book mainly follows Lottie's story full of everything that life is made of: love, loss and so on. I like how it shows that love can grow from friendship full of understanding and loyalty and how some are a whirlwind of intense passion. This book has it all. I would say if you, like me, are a sucker for love stories give this one a go!