Bath Bookshop's Seattle Inspiration, Colette Movie, The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick, Love & Gelato and Love & Luck by Jenna Evans Welch

Wow, this bookshop, which was inspired by Seattle's Elliott Bay book store, sounds like a wonderful place. I have always wanted to visit England, and now I have an excuse to visit Bath, England once I get there!

Bath Bookshop's Seattle Inspiration

Nic Bottomley, who owns Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37625847 in Bath, England, with his wife, Juliette, and is president of the Booksellers Association of the U.K. and Ireland,

told the Guardian why the two quit their jobs

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37625848

as lawyers to open the bookshop in 2006: "We wanted to spend our lives

doing something we loved. We were on our honeymoon and got the idea

after visiting one of the world's greatest independent bookshops, the

Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle."

According to the Guardian, the bookshop features "claw-foot bath book

displays, toilets illustrated by former children's laureate Chris

Riddell, bibliotheraphy rooms, and the Bookshop Band, who play songs

that they've written inspired by the books of guest authors."

I've been a fan of Colette since I was a teenager, and read some of her scandalous work. I eagerly await this movie.

Movies: Colette

Bleecker Street has released the first trailer for Colette

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37625860.

Variety reported that "Keira Knightley stars as the eponymous Parisian

novelist struggling through an abusive and exploitative marriage to

Henry Gauthier-Villars, played by Dominic West. During their marriage,

Gauthier-Villars forced Colette to write her famous Claudine novels

under his name, reaping the fame and financial rewards that came with

the novels' success."

In a recent interview, Knightley told Variety that screenwriter Richard

Glazer and director Walsh Westmoreland "labored for 15 years to get the

film financed" and that the timing of the movie's release in the midst

of the #Time'sUp and #MeToo movements "isn't coincidental. She said the

pic's plot revolving around Colette's revolt against her abusive husband

and her affair with Marquise de Belbeuf, a notable gender-defying

lesbian artist of the time, draws parallels to the stories being told

today." Colette premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is set to

hit theaters September 21.

The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie was a book I felt compelled to read after last weeks book of hers that I enjoyed (and reviewed). Crusie's books are just perfect for summer, they're like beach reads, even for those of us who burn too easily and like to stay indoors in the air conditioning. You can finish most Crusie books in a day, and I read Cinderella Deal in an afternoon. It was, like all her novels, rife with witty banter and lighthearted prose that compliments a zippy plot with at least one good sex scene (thankfully, Crusie knows how to write a hot sex scene without cringe-worthy euphemisms and sexist cliches). Here's the blurb: Daisy Flattery is a free spirit with a soft spot for strays and a weakness for a good story. Why else would she agree to the outrageous charade offered by her buttoned-down workaholic neighbor, Linc Blaise? The history professor needs a makeshift fiancée to secure his dream job, and Daisy needs a short-term gig to support her painting career. And so the Cinderella Deal is born: Daisy will transform herself into Linc’s prim-and-proper fiancée, and at the stroke of midnight they will part ways, no glass slippers attached. But something funny happens on their way to make-believe bliss, as a fake engagement unexpectedly spirals into an actual wedding. Now, with Linc and Daisy married and under one roof, what started as a game begins to feel real—and the people who seem so wrong for each other realize they may truly be just right.

Though the names of the main characters are a bit stereotypical, I still felt that they were well drawn and interesting, and their story worth telling. Crusie says in her intro to this novel that it was an early work of hers, and that her previous books had main characters that were seen as a little too removed and cold. So she created an especially warm and voluptuous protagonist in Daisy, and in so doing realized that putting more emotions into her characters was/is a good thing. I'd give this funny romantic romp an A, and recommend it to anyone who is looking for a light summer read.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick is the August novel for my library book group. Recommended by our librarian Jen, this book is often compared to the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. As it turns out, the comparison was rather astute, because both novels are about older men finding themselves by traveling and exploring what life has to offer. I actually thought that the title referred to Mr Pepper's charming personality, but it refers, instead, to an actual charm bracelet of his late wifes. Here's the blurb: In this hauntingly beautiful story of love, loneliness and self-discovery, an endearing widower embarks on a life-changing adventure.
Sixty-nine-year-old Arthur Pepper lives a simple life. He gets out of bed at precisely 7:30 a.m., just as he did when his wife, Miriam, was alive. He dresses in the same gray slacks and mustard sweater vest, waters his fern, Frederica, and heads out to his garden.

But on the one-year anniversary of Miriam’s death, something changes. Sorting through Miriam’s possessions, Arthur finds an exquisite gold charm bracelet he’s never seen before. What follows is a surprising and unforgettable odyssey that takes Arthur from London to Paris and as far as India in an epic quest to find out the truth about his wife’s secret life before they met—a journey that leads him to find hope, healing and self-discovery in the most unexpected places.Featuring an unforgettable cast of characters with big hearts and irresistible flaws, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper is a joyous celebration of life’s infinite possibilities. 

This book also reminded me a lot of A Man Called Ove, in that both older male protagonists were lost without their wives, who died before them, leaving both men to fend for themselves when they were accustomed to being cared for by a woman (which is horribly sexist, but these are men of my parents generation, where sexism was the norm). Arthur Pepper is fortunate enough to have a neighbor lady who cares enough about him to bring him food and check up on him, and instead of being grateful for her care, he hides from her like a little kid, and treats her with cool indifference. He realizes he's been a bonehead later on in the book, but I found myself (as I did with Ove) wanting to smack him over the head and tell him to stop being such an immature jerk. Arthur also becomes jealous of his wife's old flames and her life previous to meeting him, which is equally ridiculous. Just because he had a boring and unsatisfying love life before he met her doesn't mean that there is something wrong with his wife because she went places and had affairs and friendships and lived!  Anyway, Arthur finally makes peace with his wife's past, and then uses her bracelet to help others, which makes for a sweetly satisfying ending. I'd give the book a B+, and recommend it to those who liked Harold Fry and Ove. 

Love & Gelato  and Love & Luck by Jenna Evans Welch are two delightful YA novels that really could be enjoyed by women of any age. They were recommended to me by some people in author Gail Carriger's Facebook group, who routinely post book recommendations that are either YA, Urban Fantasy or Steampunk or Paranormal Romance. Love & Gelato is set in Italy, when our protagonist Lina travels to meet the father she never knew about after her mother dies of cancer. While there, she encounters two handsome ex-pats like herself, and spends the summer being wooed by them while also learning her mother's secrets via a diary her mother sent to Italy ahead of her. Here's the blurb: A summer in Italy turns into a road trip across Tuscany in this sweeping debut novel filled with romance, mystery, and adventure.

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is get back home.

But then Lina is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires Lina, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept from Lina for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.

Though (SPOILER) Lina inevitably discovers that Howard isn't her biological father (which readers will spot within the first few chapters,easily), I felt that her journey through the places her mother loved in Italy allowed her to grow up and realize that family of the heart is much more important than "blood" relations. Because she's grieving, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in terms of whiny and adolescent behavior, but I still don't understand why it is so important for teenage girls in every YA book to have a "perfect" boyfriend by the end of the novel. Still, this was a solid read with fluid prose and a fast plot. A B+ and a recommendation to anyone who is fascinated by Italy.

Love & Luck is the story of Lina's best friend Addie, who is visiting Ireland for her relative's destination wedding with her three idiotic brothers and her tyrannical mother, who seems to expect Addie to be like a second mother to them and keep her youngest brother in line. Having visited Ireland back in 2000, I was delighted to read the brilliant descriptions of the places and people that Addie and her bizarre brother Ian (who seemed to me to be on the autism spectrum, like someone with Aspergers) visit and think about my own time there, looking at all the colors of green and interacting with the marvelous Irish people. Here's the blurb: Addie is visiting Ireland for her aunt’s over-the-top destination wedding, and hoping she can stop thinking about the one horrible thing she did that left her miserable and heartbroken—and threatens her future. But her brother, Ian, isn’t about to let her forget, and his constant needling leads to arguments and even a fistfight between the two once inseparable siblings. Miserable, Addie can’t wait to visit her friend in Italy and leave her brother—and her problems—behind.

So when Addie discovers an unusual guidebook, Ireland for the Heartbroken, hidden in the dusty shelves of the hotel library, she’s able to finally escape her anxious mind and Ian’s criticism.

And then their travel plans change. Suddenly Addie finds herself on a whirlwind tour of the Emerald Isle, trapped in the world’s smallest vehicle with Ian and his admittedly cute, Irish-accented friend Rowan. As the trio journeys over breathtaking green hills, past countless castles, and through a number of fairy-tale forests, Addie hopes her guidebook will heal not only her broken heart, but also her shattered relationship with her brother.
That is if they don’t get completely lost along the way. 

I was not a fan of Ian or his friend Rowan, who both make it clear that they are going to do anything and everything to get to the musical concert for this weird band they're enamored of, even if it compromises Addies chances for a college soccer scholarship. Once again, the female in the story must compromise her dreams and desires for those of the males in the story. Sexist and so wrong on many levels. Plus, again inevitably, Addie finds herself falling for Rowan, though after the crap he and her brother pull, I wouldn't want anything to do with him, as he's a liar with a crappy car (which Addie has to repair on the fly, because, again, the males have to be cared for by the females). Still, their journey, though fraught with near-encounters with the parents and car debacles galore, seemed to change Addie's outlook on herself and the jerk at her high school who sent her semi-nude selfie to all of his friends, because he's a stereotypical jock. Addie gets courageous and finally seems to take stock of herself. The ending was slightly less satisfying than Love & Gelato, as we are left with Addie walking up to the front doors of her school, not knowing how much harassment and bullying she will face upon entering. One hopes that her dipshit brothers will prove to be worth something and help her out for a change. Anyway, I'd give this book a B-, and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Love & Gelato, and wants more of Addie and Lina.

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