Sam's Fireside - Cosy Book Reviews & Recommendations

"All I require is a letter of consent from your husband, giving his permission." That quote! ⏫ 🤯 That was about a wife needing permission from her husband to open a bank account! Can you even imagine?! However, it was 1942 and a very different time, so I guess no one knew any different. This is the second book in the Wartime Hotel series. Kitty and her friends are all still living at the Dunbar Hotel, now a storage business run by Kitty herself. In this book though, we see her diversify into letting people hold their wedding receptions in the old hotel 💒. The three friends are resourceful in how they manage to turn an old dining room into a space where love can be celebrated 💐. In this book, the friends find themselves in all sorts of love tangles too 💕, some life-changing and some with difficult decisions to make. Throughout it all though, they stand by each other and support one another through those decisions—sometimes judging, but ultimately always there in the end 🤝...

“…their laughter wove its way around the bustling stalls, a joyous sound telling of friendship and resilience.” 💕 The Market Girls of Petticoat Lane is the first book in a brand-new series from Patricia McBride, and I knew I’d love it before I even started 📖✨ Despite being set during the Second World War, it’s cosy and full of hope and inspiration 🤍🌟 Maisie, Amanda, and Bethan — despite their differing home lives — are the very best of friends. They work together, play together, and look forward to a productive business future together 👭👚 I really enjoyed the camaraderie between the friends, and it’s honestly eye-opening to see how different young people were eighty years ago compared to today ⏳ The work ethic is far more evident, especially during the war years 💪🕊️ It’s always a joy to read wartime fiction like this, and I inevitably feel happy and contented by the end of the book 😊📚 Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Market ...

Friendships and family, new life and new beginnings. I love being back in Street, in Somerset, as Kate, Louisa, and Jeannie are hoping against hope that Britain will win the dreadful war and their loved ones can come home. Once again the book is full of friendships and family, new life and new beginnings, but it also isn't without its heartache as the atrocities of war are still in action. Prisoner of war camps are real, and the Germans are using that dreadful mustard gas! Despite everything, this book is full of hope and positivity, and I admire how strong people were (and had to be) during these difficult times.  I'm pretty sure that this is the last book in the series, and I'm gutted, I'd love to see how the Clarks Factory Girls live their lives as WWI ends and there is fresh hope on the horizon again. Perhaps May will write about them as they have to devastatingly navigate WWII.  Thank you to NetGalley, Boldwood Books and Rachel's Random Resources for the opport...

Times are changing, as Manchester's ladies try to survive during WWII. I love an educational WWII novel, and I've read many over the years. The ones where you learn more about the atrocities of the prison camps and the tenacity of the people who were held there. But I equally love a more lighthearted story, which is exactly what A New Home at the Wartime Hotel by Maisie Thomas is. It's the first in a new series, and although there is one heartbreaking topic (check the trigger warnings), this was a winner for me. This time we are in Manchester as WWII continues, men are off fighting and the women are left to hold the fort - or the hotel! The characters are resilient and resourceful, and Kitty in particular was amazing as she fought to keep her home, and reconfigure the business to provide for her teenage daughter. Lily, Beatrice and Kitty (and Abbie) all became firm friends by the end of the story and I can't wait to hear what's in store for them next. Thank you to N...

Book three in The Clarks Factory Girls series from May Ellis and once again we are thrown into war-torn Somerset, and the lives of the men and women of Street, many of whom work in the Clarks shoe factory. Throughout the series, battles are being fought, on the frontline, but also in homes, where parents and children don't always see eye to eye! I love to read about the resilience of people, towns and villages, as they dealt with the horrors which war threw at them. Despite the hardships, they battle on and usually come out smiling. May Ellis draws me into her books and makes me feel like a part of the family, and I can just imagine sitting down with them and having a cuppa and a natter in front of the fire.  The world has come a long way since the early 1900s, when women weren't allowed to work once they got married and were expected to keep house and look after the children. Sometimes it's difficult to imagine how that was even a thing! I love my days with the girls, and ...

Goodreads is really confusing with this series, and which book is which number in the series, so I’m ignoring all that and just going in to say that I really enjoyed The Foyles Bookshop Girls’ Promise. This one sees Rosie as our protagonist, and along with her friends, family and colleagues, she deals with the trials and tribulations of London during WWI. Rosie is working at Foyles Bookshop, but she’s also lending a hand in the hospital. That’s all before she begins to help the children in the local school with their reading! Elaine writes with such warmth about all of her characters, and it’s extremely easy to lose a few hours while you’re immersed in one of her stories. The book is well-researched, and although it is fiction, I enjoy reading about the way life would have been during the war. Regardless of what number this is in the series, I loved it and at some point, I’ll investigate what I’m missing and what’s going on with the other books. Thank you to NetGalley, Boldwood Books ...

I read the first two books in the Clarks Factory Girls series, back to back. This second in the series is a continuation of the lives and stories of the people who live and work in Street, Somerset, in the UK and, once again, they welcome us with open arms. I love the characters (well, most of them) that May has created and the family and friendship they bring.  This time around, we discover more about the effects the First World War had on the men who fought and the women who stayed at home, as well as the backward beliefs that some characters had, resulting in heartbreaking decisions having to be made, particularly by young women.  I love the community spirit in this series. Almost everyone looks out for their friends and neighbours and will help them out any way they can if necessary.  If you love a wartime saga like I do, then pick up these books. Despite the setting of WWI, they are warm and cosy books with great characters who you just want to be friends with. ...

The Clarks Factory Girls is a new wartime saga series by May Ellis and as I’m on the book tour for the second in the series, I wanted to read the first one, before I started the second. I’m unsure whether our friends across the pond know that Clarks Shoes used to be a massive thing in the UK (although maybe not as much these days). Almost everyone I knew had a pair of Clarks shoes as their first ever pair, and school shoes in particular would, more often than not, have been a pair of Clarks. Anyway, this series immerses us into the lives of characters who lived and worked in the village of Street in Somerset in the UK, where Clarks had its first factory. Louisa, Jeannie, and Kate have been friends since they were all at school together and now work side by side in the machine shop in the Clarks factory in 1914. Throughout the book, we learn how the community, factories and individuals coped with the onset of war and the challenges that it brought, whether personal or professional. I ...

The second in the East End Library Girls series and a welcome return to Cordelia, Jane and Mavis. Since Cordelia arrived at the library, the three have become firm friends. This book continues where the first one left off and we follow the lives of the three women and how they are surviving the war. Houses are bombed, children are evacuated and soldiers are injured, but the three are resilient and manage to cope with whatever is thrown at them. I loved catching up with these three again. Despite the harrowing circumstances of war, the book has a lovely warm feeling. I enjoy reading about life during the war, the difficulties with housing, finding food and not knowing from one day to the next what will happen. It makes us appreciate everything we have today. The library helped bring the community together and for those who were lonely, I can only imagine that this must have been a godsend.  Although the second in the series, this could be read as a standalone. However, the first one...

There are four books (so far) in the Cornish Girls series by Betty Walker and I’ve only read two! It absolutely doesn’t matter. You can read it as a standalone or as part of the series. I will definitely go back and read the other two, even if the characters will all be upside down and back to front! A Mother’s Hope for the Cornish Girls is set during WWII and the story is told primarily by Sonya, Lily and Mary, each living and working in St Ives. Sonya is helping at the orphanage, Lily is now training to be a midwife and Mary is working as a nurse in the convalescent home for wounded soldiers.  I devoured this book in two days, I just couldn’t put it down and I’ve just discovered there is a new book coming out in August so I can’t wait for that! It is beautifully written, with compassion and empathy. I read the last page and closed the book, feeling that I had just been enveloped in a great big hug! Thank you to Avon Books for sending me a review copy of A Mother’s Hope for the ...

⭐⭐⭐⭐ It’s the middle of the Second World War and life in Cornwall may not be as difficult as in the big cities, but it has its moments. Lily, Eva and Rose are working in St Ives, in Cornwall, at Symmonds Hall Convalescent Home for injured officers, and preparing for Christmas. Lily is footloose and fancy-free. Eva has her heart set on an injured Flight Lieutenant who doesn’t; think he’s the man for her, and Rose is in love with her sister’s fiancee. What on earth could go wrong? Fun and laughter, sorrow and heartache, Christmas with the Cornish Girls has it all and Betty Walker brings the characters to life as we prepare for a wartime Christmas with them all. The nurses are compassionate and caring, and the injured men are brave and determined. In the uncertain and challenging times of war, we discover just how everyone works together to make the best of what they have. If you enjoy a wartime story with a bit of love and Cornwall thrown in, then you’ll enjoy this. Thank you to NetGalle...

  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Second World War has recently ended and people are trying to return to some sort of normality in Worthing, West Sussex. Izzy and Linda’s father has returned from the war but is without a job, suffering from anger issues and often in the pub, returning home drunk, late at night. After one such night, and following an argument with her husband, Izzy’s mother leaves and doesn’t return. Over the next two years, the girls are brought up by their grandparents, until one day their father comes to take them home. Izzy is desperate to find out why her mother left, whilst trying to maintain a job and support her sister and father.  As was normal in post-war Britain, it is the women who look after the house and, in the absence of a mother, this fell to Izzy. We travel along with her as she grows up, with a world of responsibility on her shoulders. Her family has fallen apart and she will do all she can to find out why and put right as much as she can.  At Home by the Sea...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Set between the present day and the years following the end of World War II in Mid Wales, The Drowned Village is a beautiful, but heartbreaking story. Sixty-five years ago, Elin Jenkins, a young Welsh girl, and Al Locke, an American sailor, had their whole lives ahead of them and, after Al proposed, the plan was for Elin to move to Pennsylvania and marry the man she loved. However, life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. Present-day and Sophie is running a bunkhouse in Wales, and one of her guests is an elderly gentleman in his eighties... I thoroughly love a book that is based on historical facts and makes me want to research more about what I’ve read, This is definitely true of The Drowned Village, I only live about 3 hours drive from Mid Wales, yet I wasn’t aware of entire villages that were flooded with water to create a reservoir, to provide water for industries, just over the border in Liverpool.  The descriptions of the Welsh countryside, with its towering...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  Wow! This was such an awesome listen. Those of you who are regular readers of my reviews will know that I love a good Audiobook and often lose myself in someone else’s world for hours at a time! A Mother’s Secret was no exception, and I quickly fell in love with the characters (well, most of them)! Winnie is running The Battersea Tavern at the onset of the Second World War, and alongside her faithful barmaid, Rachel, they welcome their regulars in with pleasant conversation and the promise of a pint. Winnie’s lazy husband, Brian, spends most of his time in his armchair, whilst their son, David, doesn’t have an honest bone in his body. Kitty Neale introduces a wide variety of characters into the book, each with their own story to tell, many of which are sad and which will definitely tug at your heartstrings. Dealing with alcoholism and domestic abuse, these subjects are managed delicately and in keeping with the era in which the book is set. We need to remember that ba...