The Book Lovers Retreat By Heidi Swain
Paperback published by Simon and Schuster 13th April 2023
ISBN 9781398519510
Three best friends.
A dream cottage.
The holiday of a lifetime.
Classic novel Hope Falls is friends Emily. Rachel and Tori’s favourite book. So when they get the chance to spend a whole summer at the cottage in Lakeside where the film adaptation was located, they know it’s going to be the holiday of a lifetime.
Spending six weeks away will give them a chance to re-evaluate their life choices. For Emily to decide which way her career will go and for Rachel to decide whether to move in with her partner Jeremy. Then Tori has to drop out at the last moment, and her space is offered to another Hope Falls aficionado, Alex.
But when Alex turns out not to be who they expected, the holiday takes an unforeseen turn. And as the summer develops, so does their friendship. Could this be where they uncover their future selves. Find love in all its forms and where their lives will change course forever ?
MY REVIEW
I have to be completely honest I didn’t gel with this story, as much as I thought I would. For me this story fell a little flat, with nothing much exciting happened to keep me entertained. Although I read all of the book, there wasn’t any real juicy things happening along the way to make me love this book.
Rachel, Emily and Alex, are staying at a beautiful cottage for six weeks further summer in lakeside which is famous for the film adaptation of Hope Falls.
Additionally, Tori should have gone with Rachel and Emily, but she had to drop out at the last moment, where the place was then offered to Alex. I did laugh as it was a surprise to Rachel and Emily when they got to lakeside cottage when they find out that Alex was a bloke, when they just assumed that Alex was a woman.
The idea seems perfect spending most of the entire summer next to a beautiful lake, it reminded me of a family holiday I had to the UK Lake District.
While Rachel, Emily and Alex are staying in this wonderful cottage with its own little shore, they plan to re-read a love story book, with friendship of three very different women, strangers thrown together in a bid to escape their individual problems and tragedies and re-watch the film where three women in the novel had arrived in the same location. It sounded a really good idea that they planned to visit all the locations in around the village of lakeside, that are in the set in the book and film.
Although I loved the idea of them having fun, but skinny-dipping in the lake, I thought was rather a brave thing to do, but then again who would see them?
Em and Alex seem to be getting along rather well. Rachel has just decided to come out and share her secret that Jeremy her boyfriend has asked her to move in with him. Emily makes a big mistake, but will Rachel really forgive her? Out of the blue, Tori turns up at the lakeside cottage, but why?
Although I didn’t like this story much, I do recommend reading The Book Lovers Retreat, because there are so many beautiful reviews.
Although passionate about writing from an early age, Heidi Swain gained a degree in Literature, flirted briefly with a newspaper career, married and had two children before she finally plucked up the courage to join a creative writing class and take her literary ambitions seriously.
A lover of Galaxy bars, vintage paraphernalia and the odd bottle of fizz, she now writes contemporary fiction and enjoys the company of a whole host of feisty female characters.
Heidi can be found at the keyboard at all hours of the day and night and quite often scribbling longhand in her car during her lunch break. She lives in stunning south Norfolk with her wonderful son and daughter and a mischievous cat called Storm.
Website
http://www.heidiswain.blogspot.co.uk/
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