Tuesday, October 15, 2019

BLOG TOUR - The Garden on Sparrow Street


Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for The Garden on Sparrow Street by Tilly Tennant.

DESCRIPTION:

As the cold winter nights draw in, escape to the sleepy town of Wrenwick, where the streets sparkle with snow and a lonely young widow is about to find that true love really can strike twice…

As Christmas cheer fills Sparrow Street with excitement, grieving widow Nina is having a hard time. December is always a difficult month to face without her beloved husband Gray, the days feel long and bleak, and to cap it all, she’s just lost her job.

So when Nina hears that Sparrow Street’s Community Garden, one of Gray’s favourite places, is to be put up for sale she knows she must do something. Filled with purpose, she gathers the residents of Sparrow Street around her to turn the neglected patch of land into a Garden of Memories.

Working with her neighbours, single mum Kelly and eighty-year-old Ada, Nina soon finds that she’s not the only lonely soul on Sparrow Street. And as the community comes together and the garden flourishes, Nina can’t help but be drawn to Irish gardener Colm with his sparkling blue eyes and kind heart, finding herself confiding in him about all her recent troubles.

But just as Colm and Nina grow closer and he opens up to her about his own secret loss, Colm’s estranged wife returns from Scotland, wanting to try again. Nina knows she should let the man she’s falling for go – it’s the right thing to do. But what if fate has other plans in store? Will the beautiful garden on Sparrow Street have brought two people together only for Nina’s cautious heart to push them apart?

If you love an uplifting, moving love story, then The Garden on Sparrow Street is the perfect romantic read to curl up with on a winter’s afternoon. Fans of Josie Silver and Carole Matthews will love this book!

MY THOUGHTS:

Title:   The Garden on Sparrow Street
Author:  Tilly Tennant
Genre:   Romance; Women's Fiction
Publisher:  Bookouture
Format:  Kindle ARC
No. of Pages:   345
Date of Publication:  October 9, 2019
My Rating:  4.5 Stars

Christmas is coming quickly, but it is not a season of joy for Nina. She is a widow, and that makes things hard enough as it was during Christmas she lost her husband. What makes this year especially difficult is that charity shop she has volunteered at for years is closing down.

Nina finds something else to help to occupy her time. She attends a board meeting with her best friend Robyn, also a widow who works with Nina at the shop. There is a plan to create a Community Garden on Sparrow Street. This place was very close to her husband's heart, and Nina is eager to take on the project.

Nina, Robyn and several other residents begin the endeavor and things begin looking up. There is someone new on the scene, however, who actually turns Nina's head. That is Colm, an Irish gardener, who just happens to be something special. At first Nina feels disloyal to her first love, but while the garden is being set up, along with some troubles along the way, Nina and Colm draw ever closer together.

There are some hiccups along the way, however. Not only is Nina very concerned with how Colm's daughter might feel if their relationship blossoms, suddenly Colm's estranged wife shows up and wants to reunite the family. Nina must make some difficult choices.

What a a touching story! On the one hand, it was rather heartbreaking when Nina's loss is brought to mind, along with her exploring whether or not she can love again. In a wonderful way, however, this turns into a story of love and hope and definitely gave me the feels. This seasonal story is the perfect evening read, one where time could easily be suspended, knowing that in the end, one's heart will leap for joy.

This is only the third book that I have read by Tilly Tennant. I definitely want to dive into the rest of her backlist, because her stories are always touching and very rewarding.

Many thanks to Bookoture and to NetGalley for this ARC to review. This is my honest opinion.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tilly Tennant was born in Dorset, the oldest of four children, but now lives in Staffordshire with a family of her own. After years of dismal and disastrous jobs, including paper plate stacking, shop girl, newspaper promotions and waitressing (she never could carry a bowl of soup without spilling a bit), she decided to indulge her passion for the written word by embarking on a degree in English and creative writing. She wrote a novel in 2007 during her first summer break at university and has not stopped writing since. She also works as a freelance fiction editor, and considers herself very lucky that this enables her to read many wonderful books before the rest of the world gets them.

Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn was her debut novel; published in 2014 it was an Amazon bestseller in both the UK and Australia. In 2016 she signed to the hugely successful Bookouture and is currently working on her next Tilly Tennant novel. She also writes as Sharon Sant, where she explores the darker side of life, and Poppy Galbraith, where things get a little crazier.



9 comments:

  1. I love Tilly's books and wish I'd had space to be on the blog tour. The book sounds amazing. Great review.

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  2. Great review! This sounds like a wonderful winter read.

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  3. This looks like a really cute holiday book!

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  4. Great review! This looks like a cute book!

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  5. ooh! the title and that cover.. and looks like you enjoyed this one.. i will add this one to my list

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  6. Love Christmas stories and the cover is so pretty.

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  7. Great review Robin, this book looks and sounds like an amazingly great Christmas book. Plus I absolutely love Christmas books as well. I'm really glad you fully enjoyed reading this book. Thank you so much for sharing your awesome post.

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