“What if the journey to happily-ever-after is a little… bumpy?”
Gigi Rutherford owns a romance bookstore called ‘Love Interest’, which she inherited from her parents much too early. The store was the place her parent’s love story began, over a book called Their Finest Hour. Skip ahead a couple of decades and Gigi discovers its audiobook and falls in love with the narrator’s voice. After listening to it several times, going so far as to look him up, she is convinced that he is part of her love story. Then on her 30th birthday, her ‘Romance –Novel- Loving’ book club gifts her with a 10-day bus tour through the gorgeous English countryside. The icing on the cake is the tour guide is Zane Wilkenson, the narrator of Their Finest Hour. Gigi arrives at the bus station, climbs on the bus, and meets her seven fellow eclectic passengers all with their own unique backstories, a handsome but snarkiest of bus drivers, and the wrong tour guide. Gigi continues with the tour in hopes that Zane will join them at some point along the way.
“Sometimes there are detours on the road to love…”
Both the lead character owning a romance bookstore and the attractive cover enticed me to read this novel. I really enjoyed getting to know each of the characters on the tour and I will warn you, the settings described on the tour will make you want to travel to England and book your own tour. I loved all the romance novel references throughout the story and as someone who runs a book club; I thought the questions that were included in the reader’s guide at the back of the book to be fun and insightful.
When I read the acknowledgements at the end, I discovered it was serendipity that I read this book as my first romance book review for TMR. At the end of the acknowledgements, Chantel thanks Billie Bloebaum,” the biggest romance lover of them all” and “the mastermind behind Bookstore Romance Day”. I am proud to say that the bookstore I manage, Dartmouth Book Exchange, has participated in BRD every year since it was first conceived.
I will also point out that June is Audiobook Appreciation Month, so it was fitting that I read a story during the month of June that has the main character obsessing over the voice narrating a story in an audiobook.
I would recommend this story to anyone that likes a sweet happily-ever-after (HEA), or a happy-for-now (HFN), closed-door (with no sex scenes) rom-com escape.
Sue Slade has a Bachelor of Child Study from Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax. After working with children and adults with special needs, she now has her midlife dream job of working with books. Sue manages an independent, locally owned bookstore, Dartmouth Book Exchange. Through her charismatic sharing centred around books and community, Sue has created an engaging cornerstone for authors, customers, and book lovers of all ages. Sue is an avid reader and her reviews cross over many genres.
Good review.
Thanks, Allan.