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Book Review: Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop, by Jenny Colgan

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In 2019, I won a copy of Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop, by Jenny Colgan through Goodreads. But I didn’t receive it until almost Christmas day. By which point, I was well and truly swamped and didn’t get around to reading it. (And last year we had kitchen construction this time of year, so I didn’t do much Christmas reading.) As a result, the book waited for this Christmas season to get read. But that made it perfect for my 2021 Christmas reading challenge.

christmas at rosie hopkin's sweetshop

Rosie Hopkins is looking forward to Christmas in the little Derbyshire village of Lipton, buried under a thick blanket of snow. Her sweetshop is festooned with striped candy canes, large tempting piles of Turkish Delight, crinkling selection boxes and happy, sticky children. She’s going to be spending it with her boyfriend, Stephen, and her family, flying in from Australia. She can’t wait. But when a tragedy strikes at the heart of their little community, all of Rosie’s plans for the future seem to be blown apart. Can she build a life in Lipton? And is what’s best for the sweetshop also what’s best for Rosie?

my review

Since this has been on my TBR for a while, I forgot that it is second in a series when I picked it up to read. So, I ended up reading it on it’s own. I felt the lack of having read book one, but not enough to really reduce my enjoyment of this book. So, it functions ok as a stand alone.

I liked Rosie a lot. I liked Stephen too. I liked Moray and the other quirky members of the village. I disliked pretty much all of both Rosie and Stephen’s families (excepts Lilian). I was horrified that no one said anything about Rosie’s mother’s appalling behavior in mortifying her daughter and almost driving the man she loves away by boorishly pushing a too delicate situation. Similarly, that Stephen’s mother was such an unmitigated bitch until her sudden and unbelievable shift in demeanor was hard to forgive. That these behaviors were allowed to simply exist without censure infuriated me and made Rosie feel like a pushover.

Outside of that big issue, I thought this a sweet, easily readable little love story and would read another Colgan book.

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Other Reviews:

Why Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop Wasn’t What I Expected

Review: Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop by Jenny Colgan (audio)

Audiobook Review: Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop by Jenny Colgan

Come back tomorrow, when I’ll be reviewing Smokin’ How Cowboy Christmas, by Kim Redford.

 

On Her Own Two Wheels

Book Review of On Her Own Two Wheels, by Stacy Xavier

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I’m in England for the holiday and the blog is on hiatus, but I wanted to make sure I managed to get this review written and posted, since On Her Own Two Wheels (by Stacy Xavier) is my 2019 X-authored alphabet challenge book.

Description from Goodreads:

Just three years out of college and Cassie Wright has hit a dead end. Still living at home with her mom and dad and dating the same writer masked as a waiter, Devon, for just as long, she knows she wants more out of life. Motorcycle lessons seem like a fun idea and the perfect escape. Cassie soon finds herself breaking away from her dull life and starts on a journey to self-confidence as she learns how to make each day extraordinary. 

While driving home from visiting her grandmother in Wisconsin, she drags a reluctant Devon to a local biker event at a motorcycle dealership. From there, she becomes inspired to take riding lessons for some much needed fun and adventure. In time, she meets Marcus, the part-time riding instructor and full-time college administrator. He is drawn to Cassie’s ambition and adventurous spirit, and a romance quickly blossoms, forcing Cassie to realize she deserves better than what Devon chooses to give. 

Becoming more confident in her everyday life through her riding, Cassie quits the electronics shop to become the motorcycle dealership’s new marketing director, opening herself up to an entirely new set of professional and personal obstacles. Cassie must learn to approach her issues in a whole new way while striving to be the type of woman she herself would want to emulate. 

An inspirational coming-of-age novel for any woman who has ever settled for less, romantically or professionally, On Her Own Two Wheels tells the moving tale of a young woman finding the courage to challenge herself, break the mold, seek adventure, and make the ordinary in her life extraordinary as she truly comes into her own.

Reviews:

This was light and fluffy, but I also thought the writing quite pedestrian and the plot shallow. I very much appreciate the themes the book took on—sexism in the workplace, respect in relationships, finding yourself after college, etc. But the solutions were presented as too simple to be believed. She shattered long engrained sexual harassment habits in a garage full of men with professional dress and a quelling glance, for example. 

I think my biggest issue with the book however is that it starts with the main character deciding to change her life and she does, in big ways. But we’re never given any reason for this change in her attitude. It feels anchoress and random. If she’s such an outspoken, feminist, respect driven woman why has she let her life get to the point it has. If she hadn’t been up until the beginning of the book, what changed? I feel the book really needed that information. 

All in all, not bad but not great either.

Review of Sonata, by A.F. Henley

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Author, A.F. Henley was generous enough to send two of their books to be included in my Little Free Library. Sonata is one of them. This afternoon, I chose to borrow it back and read it.

Description from Goodreads:

At thirty-six Ian feels done with the world. When a night at a bar goes as poorly as expected, he wants only to return home to be miserable in peace. Instead, he encounters Jordan. Hot, young and interested, Jordan is everything Ian’s ever wanted and nothing he believes himself capable of actually obtaining. 

Jordan has enough going on in his life trying to scrape together a living for himself and his autistic son. When he meets Ian, all he wants is a brief, erotic moment and nothing else. 

But fate throws them together again and again, and Ian finds himself determined to do whatever it takes to give their story a happy ending – no matter what secrets Jordan’s past has waiting for him.

Review:

This is another hard one to review. I really adored some aspects of it. I mean Ian’s openness and heartfelt desire to care for someone was super touching. I really liked him. I felt Jordan’s desperation, even before we knew why (though I guessed his circumstances fairly early on). They were a compelling pairing.

However, even as I appreciated Henley’s inclusion of an autistic child, I also felt like he was simply a plot device. He had no real discernible personality and conveniently disappeared when the plot needed him to. Plus, the happy ending wrapped up so easily that I felt Cole had simply been shunted off into the wings.

Speaking of endings, I felt like Henley just fixed everything off screen and I found it difficult to make the transition along with the story. Plus, I felt like there were a lot of things I wanted the men to talk about (to see the men talk about) that didn’t happen.

For the most part however, I thought this was a sweet little romance.