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Happy Wednesday bookish people! Today is my stop on the book tour for Edie In Between by Laura Sibson. Thank you to TBR and Beyond Tours for sending me an e-copy of this book to read and review.

In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.

Edie In Between Plot:

One of the things I really liked about this book was the way it handled grief. I think grief is experienced by many people so it is a relatable theme but everyone experiences it differently and I liked how it was represented within this book. It was interwoven with the other themes of magic and love which was done really well. Personally, I feel this book was good but I wanted a little more from the story. I also really liked the scavenger hunt aspect of the book, this is something that is unusual in books but created an interesting story.

Edie In Between Characters:

In this book the main character is Edie, she was a very likeable character to follow. I especially liked the characters of Rhia and GG, Edie’s Grandmother because they both were well written characters who captured my interest. GG’s personality created a great opening to the book.

Edie In Between Writing and Dialogue:

I enjoyed that this book has duel perspectives, one following Edie and one following Edie’s Mother when she was young and by doing this you can see how learning more about her Mother affects Edie, I don’t think that this story would work as well without the dual perspective.

Edie In Between Overall:

I gave this book three stars overall because I liked the themes of grief, magic and finding love but for me the story needed something more for me to love it.

Edie In Between Favourite Quotes:

I also wanted to share with you three of my favourite quotes from the book:
1. “I hear my Grandmother in the houseboat’s kitchen, chatting with our ancestors”
2. “I don’t love seeing ghosts, but the fact of their presence makes haunted houses, well, just houses. With ghosts in them.”
3. “It’s raining again” – this one is because of the context of the scene.

Blurb/Synopsis:

A modern-day Practical Magic about love, loss, and embracing the mystical.

It’s been one year since Edie’s mother died. But her ghost has never left.

According to her GG, it’s tradition that the dead of the Mitchell family linger with the living. It’s just as much a part of a Mitchell’s life as brewing cordials or talking to plants. But Edie, whose pain over losing her mother is still fresh, has no interest in her family’s legacy as local “witches.”

When her mother’s teenage journal tumbles into her life, her family’s mystical inheritance becomes once and for all too hard to ignore. It takes Edie on a scavenger hunt to find objects that once belonged to her mother, each one imbued with a different memory. Every time she touches one of these talismans, it whisks her to another entry inside the journal—where she watches her teenage mom mourn, love, and hope just as Edie herself is now doing. Maybe, just maybe, Edie hopes, if she finds every one of these objects, she can finally make peace with her loss and put the past to rest for good. But this journey to stake her independence from her family may actually show Edie who she truly is…and the beautiful gifts that come with being just a little different.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edie-Between-Laura-Sibson/dp/0451481143
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/edie-in-between-laura-sibson/1138485772

Here’s a link to the full tour schedule: https://tbrandbeyondtours.com/2021/07/07/tour-schedule-edie-in-between-by-laura-sibson/

About the author:

After a career in Undergraduate counselling, Laura Sibson pursued an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. When she’s not writing in a local coffee shop, you can find her running the neighborhood streets or hiking with her dog. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their two sons. Laura is available for school visits, book clubs, workshops and conferences. She can speak on the process of writing and publishing to audiences from middle school into adulthood. With her background in one-on-one counseling, giving presentations and facilitating both panels and writing groups, Laura brings both warmth and professionalism to all her endeavors.

That’s it for this book review, I hope you all enjoyed it!

Happy Friday bookish people! Today is my stop on the blog tour for the book Love Is What You Bake It by Effie Kammenou. Thank you to Love Book Tours for sending me a copy of this book to read and review.

In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.

Love is What You Bake It Plot:

I don’t read many books that can be classed as part of the romance genre so I can’t say how this book sits amongst them, however, I surprised myself because I actually enjoyed my reading of this book. I thought the plot was simple enough for me to understand everything that was happening while still complicated and filled with layers of back story that gave the story the ‘will they, won’t they’ that it needed.

I enjoyed the themes of family and friendship that were one of the main features of this book, it gave it more of a story in my opinion. I also liked that there were actual recipes sprinkled throughout the book – I definitely want to make some of these!

For me the romance element felt a little rushed, it is a short book to begin with, but I like my romance (even though it’s usually only a tiny sub-plot) to be a slow burn, and when I say slow I mean a snails pace – I like it to be very dragged out.

Love Is What You Bake It Characters:

The main characters Kally and Max were interesting and complex. The way their back stories were slowly shown to the reader was good at playing with your perceptions of the characters. My favourite character in the book has to be Athena, I don’t think it’s a spoiler by saying she is Max’s daughter – if it is sorry! – and she is great. I like children generally, in life and in fiction, but she was very well written and acted her age.

The only part I didn’t enjoy about the characters was there was one, who I won’t name because that would be a spoiler, who in my opinion was coming across a bit dangerous and a bit too controlling and then at the end they almost had a redemption arc which was for a specific reason to further the plot but I did feel that wasn’t the best way to present that character at the end.

Love Is What You Bake It Writing and Dialogue:

I don’t have a lot to say about this section. I thought the writing flowed easily and kept my interest in the story well. The dialogue, although at times too much information was given at once, was well written and matched the characters and their personalities.

Love Is What You Bake It Overall:

I have given this book four stars because I was surprised how much I actually ended up enjoying the story. It was light-hearted and fun and influenced by Greek culture which was very interesting to learn about.

Blurb/synopsis:

The only love Kally Andarakis is baking is in the form of the sweet treats she whips up in her café, The Coffee Klatch.

Kally never believed herself to be a person worthy of love, but when an intoxicating man she considered out of her league pursues her, she risks everything to be with him. Later, when tragedy strikes, truths are revealed that leave Kally brokenhearted and untrusting.

Eight years later, Kally is a successful pastry chef running the café she’d always dreamed of owning. With a home of her own, a profession she’s passionate about, and the support and love of friends and family, Kally is content with the life she has carved out for herself.

Until the day Max Vardaxis walks into her café…

With arguing parents, meddling relatives, an overly energetic grandmother, a man-crazy best friend, and the long ago, mysterious disappearance of a grandfather, this new man in town is just one more complication in Kally’s life, if not the main one.

Kally must now decide whether to keep her heart safe or to once again take a ‘whisk on love.’

That’s it for this book review, I hope you enjoyed it!

Tag: love

Book Review: Edie In Between by Laura Sibson