Holiday Series|| The Great Village Show & The Secret of Orchard Cottage.
As I write this I have just finished reading The Great Village Show and jumped straight on to here to write a book review on it along with The Secret of Orchard Cottage which I read on holiday. I am a sucker for a cosy country village book as serious escapism from the real world. I like to think these simple places still exist with people riding bikes, only buying produce from their local shops and everybody knows each other. Very Midsomer Murders but without all the death.
So I actually read these out of order, oops, which to be honest doesn't overly matter, as each book focuses on a different main character in the village, you just get a tiny spoiler every now and then. For example something I read in The Secret of Orchard Cottage I then knew about before starting The Great Village Show. But I shall talk about them in the correct order for the sake of this review.
The Great Village Show took me a little longer to read than Orchard Cottage. I basically started it on the last day of my holiday and I'd had a bit of a reading overload so when I got home I didn't really pick it back up for a while. But the sun has been shining quite a lot over the last month so it was the perfect excuse to sit in the garden and finish it.
You guessed it, this one centers around a Village show which after the failure of the previous year, the villagers are determined to win. Meg that main character who is acting headmistress of the local school which is facing closure is keen to help and sets about making this a show to remember. After an encounter with a newcomer to the village, celebrity chef Dan Wright and a new family, Meg realises that nothing is ever as it seems.
I'll be honest as much as I enjoyed this book, I didn't really warm to the character of Meg and I just felt that some of the story lines that were mentioned never really came to anything. Some of them could have been so good but seems to be resolved really easily. I wasn't left disappointed I was just left wanting more from the characters.
The Secret of Orchard Cottage was oh so different, I literally could not put this book down. Again this was another one I read in about two days on holiday. It centers around the main character April Wilson who has just lost her husband. She moves back to the village of Tindledale, which is where she spent many summers, to visit her Great Aunt Edie. When she arrives at Orchard Cottage she soon realises that the cottage and Edie both desperately need her. Edie also seems to have retreated into the past and has become obsessed with the disappearance of her sister Winnie who went missing during the war.
Firstly I love the characters names in this book series, I have a real thing for peoples names and I just think the ones in these books are beautiful. I'm a sucker for an older name which you don't hear often these days such as Winnie and Edie. This book honestly did make me cry a couple of times as I so felt for these characters and they are written in a way that it totally believable, these could well be real people somewhere. There is a part in this book that reminds me so much of a scene in the film The Holiday that makes me cry every time I see it. I also loved the mystery around the character Winnie. That's all I'm going to say on her as I don't want to spoil it for anyone who wants to read this book.
Literally loved this book from start to finish. If you already love the Tindledale series you won't be disappointed with this one. I've now got Not Just for Christmas and The Wish which I think I will leave for a while as I really don't want them to be over. I may even leave them to Christmas time as it seems odd reading a book called Not Just for Christmas in 30 degree heat.
Thank you for reading
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