Summer at Hollyhock House #BookReview #BlogTour #SapereBooks

Written by Cathy Bussey

 

 

One long summer changed Faith forever…

Faith Coombes should have been over the moon when her long-term boyfriend proposed to her. But instead, she broke up with him. Rob was safe, reliable, nice and … boring. Nothing like the only person who had ever broken her heart…

Unable to afford the rent on another flat and desperate for a new start, Faith takes the plunge and moves back to the village she grew up in, returning to the house that holds so many memories for her.

Hollyhock House, the family home of her best-friend Minel, also belongs to the boy who meant so much to her all those years ago…

As Faith falls back in love with the sprawling surroundings at Hollyhock she also finds herself falling all over again for the only person who has truly hurt her.

Can Faith come to terms with her past? Did she make the wrong decision in breaking up with Rob?

 

 

 

 

A Truly Lovely Story, Well Worth Reading!  

 

We all have memories of young love from our teenage years and this is the tale of Faith and Rik – full of fun, friends, family and with a big helping of feelings.

Faith’s friends – and their partners – all pop round on her birthday bearing gifts and good wishes to the home she shares with Rob, her boyfriend of three years; but when he gets down on one knee and presents her with a ring they soon depart when she doesn’t rush in with an excited acceptance. Realising the relationship has run it’s course, Faith heads back home to her family, childhood friends and the memories of the disastrous relationship she ran away from all those years ago.

This really is a truly lovely read – the characters are varied with each flawed in their own way. As the story proceeds we find out lots about them all, both in the past as well as the present. The inclusion of GT was brilliant- I absolutely adored the puppy’s antics and giggled out loud quite often at those! It’s a well written and very readable novel and makes the reader yearn for long summer days with hours spent in the fresh air. My only concern is the couple of continuity errors – GT popping up in places where he didn’t go, things like that. I can’t help noticing little discrepancies and although personally annoying, they don’t distract from the story as a whole, which is well worth reading and very enjoyable. This is the author’s first fictional novel and I shall certainly be watching for her further work. The enchanting cover really deserves a mention too – just perfect for the contents!

My thanks to Sapere Books both for my copy and for inviting me to participate in this Blog Tour. This is my honest, original and unbiased review.

 

Tags: rom-com

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 1666 KB
• Print Length: 334 pages
• Publisher: Sapere Books
• Publication Date: 2 August 2018
• Purchase Links: Amazon UK
•                                 Amazon US

 

 

 

 

Meet the Author

 

Cathy is an author, journalist and hopeless romantic who wrote her first book at the tender age of six. Entitled Tarka the Otter, it was a shameless rip-off of the Henry Williamson classic of the same name, and the manuscript was lost after she sent it to her pen-pal and never heard a jot from her since.

Fortunately reception to her writing became more favourable and she spent ten years working for a range of newspapers and magazines covering everything from general elections and celebrity scandals to cats stuck up trees and village fetes. She has been freelance since 2011 and written for The Telegraph, Red Online, Total Women’s Cycling and other lifestyle and cycling publications and websites.

She is the author of three non-fiction books and her debut and thankfully non-plagiarised novel Summer at Hollyhock House has been published by Sapere Books.

Cathy lives on the leafy London/Surrey border with her husband, two children and a dog with only two facial expressions, hungry and guilty. Her hobbies include mountain biking, photography, wandering around outside getting lost, fantasising about getting her garden under control, reading, looking at pretty things on Instagram and drinking tea. You can find her there @cathybussey1), on Twitter @CathyBussey or visit her website www.cathybussey.com.

 

 

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