It’s getting chillier and wetter in the Southern Hemisphere, so it’s ideal weather to curl up by the fire with a good book. Here is what I read in May. I’ve read part of more books, but I choose not to review any book I haven’t finish as that seems unfair .
I’m British expat living in Australia and as such I use British spellings.
I’ve also been working on my memoir, which at times has brought up some uncomfortable emotions. But it’s a little bit of social history, and also the story of my unexpected short term career as a bus conductor Many people have been generous with their time to help me reconstruct the past.
Love Life: How to Raise Your Standards, Find Your Person, and Live Happily by Matthew Hussey.
In Love Life, relationship coach and expert Matthew Hussey explores the most important and foundational relationship of all—the one we have with ourselves.
More than a book about navigating our love lives, Hussey’s new book is about the deeper issues our love lives reveal. Love isn’t the answer to our problems, Hussey explains. It’s a doorway to them; not a way out, but a way in. Like most of us, Hussey has gone through major changes over the past decade, and he shares some of those experiences, vulnerabilities, and mistakes.
What happens when we date, fall in love, or when we are faced with loneliness? What decisions do we make that cause us more pain and send us further adrift from what we want? Who hasn’t shied away from taking risks because they feared rejection? Who hasn’t put up with the wrong behavior because they’re afraid of losing someone or of expressing what they really need? Who hasn’t lived with the fear and anxiety of not being good enough for their partner? Or knowing their partner isn’t good for them, but stay in a bad relationship that is ultimately self-harming? In Love Life Hussey addresses these questions and more.
Our love lives hold the uncanny power to elevate or eradicate all the adjacent joy in our lives. The deeper purpose of Love Life is to ensure your love for your life will never be dependent on your relationship status. It’s about finding your love for life even while still on the journey to finding your person
My Review.
I was expecting something more from this much hyped book. More insight, suggestions and actual practical advice. Instead, the book veers through personal reminiscences and excerpts of advice. Organisation of the topics could have been clearer and better.
The Philosophy of Love by Rebecca Ryan.
What is love? Is it something spiritual or wholly physical? Can our feelings be explained and quantified? Or are we all actually two halves of a whole?
Ask Alice and Luke and you’d receive vastly different answers.
Despite her world having been recently dismantled by a messy break-up, Alice would tell you that love is the most important – albeit ineffable – human experiences. But when she once again crosses paths with her old school nemesis, Luke, he challenges this. Luke is a scientist and he’s certain love can be measured and explained – just like everything else.
So the two decide to make a bet they’ll each venture back into dating and if one of them falls in love, Alice wins, if not, then Luke does.
But can anyone win when you’re playing with emotions?
My Review
I enjoyed this quirky tale of love laced with philosophy. Do we plan to fall in love, can we plan it, or resist it? What if the person we are meant to be with isn’t the person we expect? Luke takes the objective scientific approach to life and to love. Alice leads with her heart as they discuss philosophy and love.
The Paris Bookshop for the Broken-Hearted by Rebecca Raisin.
Can you ever swear off love, in the city of love? Coco is having a hell of a month. She’s lost her boyfriend and her business, been forced to uproot her daughter to move back in with her parents in Paris, and now an infuriatingly handsome stranger is yelling at her for acting like a tourist… Right underneath the Eiffel Tower.
Storming away from him – and swearing off men for life – she decides she’s going to take the first job that comes her way.
Then, as if fate hears her, later that day she stumbles into a little bookshop – but not any old bookshop. This one comes complete with a café, cocktail bar, reading room and secret tunnel of books, and just a little hint of magic in the air. So when Coco’s offered a job selling books there, it feels like the perfect fit.
There’s only one problem… propping up the bar in the bookshop is none other than the grumpy, gorgeous stranger she’d met earlier that day…
A totally romantic, bookish and gorgeously escapist romantic novel, set in Paris in Springtime. Perfect for fans of Emily Henry, Abby Jimenez, and Sarah Morgan.
My Review.
Rebecca Raisin knows the delights of Paris well and allows her characters to explore them in this gorgeous book. You will feel as if you are propping up the bar and meeting all the characters in this starting over romance. Relationships and friendships, parental relationships and romantic ones all devolve around the bookshop.
Witch You Well by Collen Cross
Westwick Witches 1
A Westwick Witches Cozy Mystery Novel Cendrine “Cen” West has an intriguing secret. . . Cen is a journalist descended from a long line of powerful witches who have inhabited the small town of Westwick Corners for generations. Except, Cenis a witch who craves an ordinary life, and as the family black sheep, she doesn’t even want to dabble in the craft. . . much to her troublemaking Aunt Pearl’s dismay.
Then days before Cen’s wedding to a “normal” guy, a visiting billionaire is murdered at her family’s cozy inn–and now all evidence points to her eccentric Aunt Pearl. If Cen hopes to prove her aunt’s innocence, she will have to embrace her own magic and do a little sleuthing. Yet her investigation only uncovers more questions than answers after she discovers a supernatural connection to the murder, a strange vortex beneath the town, and a disturbing secret about her gorgeous fiancée.
For help she turns to the town’s sexy new sheriff, Tyler Gates. But working with him only adds more complications to her already harried life once Cen starts feeling an overwhelming attraction to the no-nonsense man.
But are her feelings for Tyler real, or just the result of pre-wedding jitters? Cen will have to find out! And will the two of them be able to get past their personal baggage to solve the case in time to save her aunt?
My Review.
This really sounded promising but unfortunately for me it fell a bit flat. It has all the ingredients for a cosy witchy mystery,small town, family, secrets, hot guy , so you may feel differently.
As I’m writing more, I’m not reading as much, but I will always have a book or three on the go. Other people’s word entertain me and inspire my own.
Sonia Bellhouse- Author. 