The Christmas Café by Amanda Prowse

 

Review Date: 5 December 2015

Author: Amanda Prowse

Release Date: 22 October 2015

Publishers: Head of Zeus

ISBN –10: 1784970379

ISBN – 13: 978-1784970376

368pp

Available in Paperback and Kindle

 

The Last Word Review

Set between Sydney and Edinburgh a story of love and heartbreak but also heart-warming

 

Amanda Prowse has done it again. I just wish I knew her secret on how she can come up with a story that will leave you as it has done with me. Writing with such prose is a gift. Amanda Prowse has that gift.

Amanda Prowse’s latest The Christmas Café is set in the Surrey Hills of Sydney, Australia and there Bea now 53 runs is struggling after the death of her husband. Bea believes only losing herself in her work can bury the true pain of loss that she feels and also the belief that she will never love again. So she sets about running their café alone. Anyone who has lost someone so very close to them knows only too well the sheer loneliness of that this can bring. So it is a blessing that Bea’s granddaughter Flora comes to stay as she is having a difficult time and this is the cause of some problems in her immediate family, then completely out of the blue comes a letter from the owner of the Christmas Café in Edinburgh there is within the email an invitation to join a worldwide forum for café owners. Bea has struck up a pen friend relationship with Alex and starts to open up about her innermost feelings. What Bea does not know at this time is that what she has started is about to change her life.

As time passes and both Bea and her Granddaughter Flora who is thirteen have really bonded with each other decide to travel to Edinburgh for the two weeks ahead of Christmas.

Imagine the climate change from the Australian Summer to the wilds of winter with added Snow thrown in Edinburgh for a thirteen year old. This is where Flora really comes into her own, I really enjoyed reading how they both adapted to the new surroundings.

From this point in the story now in Scotland really comes to the fore with Bea as there is a twist in the storyline and from here you struggle to put the book down and want to find out what happens next in the story.

This is another beautiful story from the pen of Amanda Prowse, and at the end it will leave you emotional but also with a warm glow that will see you through the coming holiday season.

I really enjoyed the main characters of Bea who was very down and struggling with life and using the café as an excuse to hide her pain and sorry after the death of her husband Peter. As for Flora the troubled teenager Amanda got this so spot on and this what makes the story run so smoothly.

This is book I know that fans of Amanda Prowse will automatically fall in love with, and if you have not yet read any of Amanda Prowse’s books, make a start this holiday season and stop of at The Christmas Café. You too will fall in love with Amanda’s books.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Meet the Author

Amanda Prowse

 Amanda has always obsessively crafted short stories and scribbled notes for potential books. Six years ago, she quit her job as a management consultant and began writing full time. Her first book, Poppy Day is a contemporary novel following an army wife whose incredible love for her husband gives her the courage to set out to rescue him after he was taken hostage in Afghanistan. Originally self-published in October 2011, Poppy Day quickly became a bestseller and Amanda joined the prestigious Head of Zeus publishing house.

The second in the No Greater Love series, ‘What Have I Done?’ was an eBook sensation where women worldwide identified with the theme of domestic abuse in middle class households and it was subsequently voted a ‘Best Book of 2013’ by Amazon Kindle. Amanda followed this by joining the team of the ITV This Morning show as their resident author in 2013 when a series of her ‘Summer Shorts’ were featured on the ITV website.

All of Amanda’s books in the No Greater Love series share one common theme – the main characters are ordinary women who find themselves in extraordinary situations where their strength, resourcefulness and determination is tested to their very limits.

Amanda’s ambition is to create stories that keep people from turning the bedside lamp off at night, great characters that ensure you take every step with them and tales that fill your head so you can’t possibly read another book until the memory fades…

Follow Amanda on Twitter @MrsAmandaProwse, or become friends with Amanda on Facebook. For more information on Amanda’s books see http://www.amandaprowse.com