Emma's Review: The Candy Apple Cafe by Donna Ashcroft

Reviewed by Emma Crowley 

When Izzi pulls up in her battered old car outside the Candy Apple Café, she takes a deep breath and channels her trademark optimism. She’s run away to Honey Haven to escape the mess her life is in right now. Only, she hasn’t bargained on a handsome, broad-shouldered Scotsman appearing out of nowhere and grilling her on why she’s parked there… it turns out the baking work she has lined up is in his gran’s café and he’s her new landlord...

Cameron is immediately rubbed up the wrong way by Izzi’s upbeat vibes and yet, his eyes keep meeting hers across his gran’s cake display at the Candy Apple Café. Cameron’s heart beats a little faster every time she looks up at him through those long, dark lashes and there are only so many times Izzi can pretend she hasn’t noticed the way he towers over her, his dark brooding eyes failing to avoid hers…

Then Izzi and Cameron find themselves thrown together to organise the town’s autumn festival. Planning a spectacular cinnamon-scented event as a surprise for his gran, they find themselves pressed up against each other as they work to turn a crumbling castle into the perfect haunted house filled with sweet treats…

But he’s closed off his heart. And she’s only meant to be in town for a few weeks.

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: The Resistance Book Club by Ellie Curzon

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Every page is shared in secret… and a single book could cost a life.

France, 1941. Margot locks her bookshop door and slips into the cellar, where a circle of brave women gather by candlelight to read the books the Germans are burning. They are risking everything to share forbidden stories and fight back. But one seat is empty… Esther is missing, and as a Jewish woman, she is in terrible danger. Whatever happens, Margot has promised to take care of Esther’s baby, darling Isabelle…

Present day. Lucy gasps as she descends into the cellar beneath the bookshop she has inherited from her grandmother. Wooden chairs are arranged in a circle, as if the resistance book club members have just vanished. A candle sits on a saucer; a book lies open.

Still grieving her grandmother, Lucy was left a letter about the wartime book club hinting at a devastating secret. And one book is wrapped in yellowed newspaper, addressed in faded ink to a woman named Esther. Does it contain a clue about the fate of the tiny baby hidden by the book club? What really happened on that dark night when one of its members was taken by the Nazis?

And as she uncovers the bookshop’s past, will the truth force Lucy to rethink everything she thought she knew about her own family? 

Book Link: Kindle

Emma's Review: The Lost Husband by Shari J. Ryan

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Celina has given up hope of ever leaving Auschwitz. Only memories of her beloved husband Noah keep her sane—her childhood sweetheart, her protector, once her entire world. If she allows herself to remember that he was killed, she knows she’ll be lost too…

Now, as the Soviets liberate the camp, Celina screams when a man in a German uniform grabs her. But the familiar green and gold sparkling in his eyes steals her breath. He looks exactly like Noah. But it can’t be him. Not here, not in this uniform…

As a Soviet officer hauls him away, Celina can’t let him go without making absolutely sure. Did her husband somehow survive the war, disguised as a German soldier?

To find the truth, she must follow as the Germans—now prisoners themselves—are marched away through the snowy forests of Poland. Staying hidden, and staying alive, will prove almost impossible.

But if it’s really Noah—and he’s still the good man Celina fell in love with—can she find a way to rescue him before she loses him all over again? 

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: The Children on the Train by Anna Stuart

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Grete always longed to be a mother, but it never happened for her so, as the clouds of war gather over Europe, she’s devoting her time to helping Jewish children escape the Nazis. She remembers the face of every single child she’s taken on trains to freedom in the Netherlands. The danger increases with each trip, but, today, she has to get her best friend’s children to safety, because they are closest thing she has to family.

But at the border, the train screeches to a halt and she hears the shout of a Nazi guard. Then the sound of boots coming towards their carriage. When the door bursts open, she draws herself up tall, and prepares to face the interrogation she knows will come. With shaking hands, she passes over Rosa and Adele’s tattered papers and hopes they aren’t scrutinised too closely.

Grete is ready to do whatever it takes to keep her small charges safe…

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: A New World for the Irish Daughter by Kate Hewitt

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

San Francisco, 1893: When Maggie O’Halloran steps off the train in California, she knows she must be brave for her friend Brendan and her brother Danny. Having fled both New York and Chicago, they all have broken spirits and fear having to start again. Can Maggie find courage and strength for them all?

Maggie soon finds a boarding house that will take them in. In a lively part of town, and with a colourful clientele, it is not somewhere she ever imagined staying. Until one night when they are woken by a distressing cry, and Maggie finds herself assisting a doctor to save a young woman’s life.

Working through the night by candlelight, Maggie realises this may be her true calling. When the doctor asks if she would consider training as a nurse, she says yes immediately, hopeful she might have finally found her purpose in life. Will this now give her the courage to tell Brendan how she truly feels?

But before she can risk her heart, Brendan reveals that Danny is in trouble once more. They are leaving at dawn for Alaska to mine for gold, and Maggie is both shocked and heartbroken. Should she stay, and continue the work that has given her life such meaning? Or should she sacrifice everything, and follow those she loves even further into the unknown?

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback