Little Teashop of Horrors by Jane Lovering

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m a fan of Jane’s books – I like the mixture of comedy and darkness. I wasn’t expecting a teashop book from her, to be honest. Anyway, we have a book about a tea shop. In Yorkshire. So there are scones and fairy cakes and raspberry crunch. There are also birds of prey. Owls! Hooray!

The heroine, Amy, had grown up being told that she’s nothing much to look at and not terribly good for anything. She has a pretty best friend, who isn’t very nice to her, and a grandmother who has old fashioned views about, well, everything. In reality, Amy is clever and capable and very, very kind, but she’s been taken advantage of so often, she’s pretty much come to expect it.

The hero, Josh, is oh, so broken. He’s very sweet (and good looking, although he does his best to hide it). He’s in love with Amy right from the start, but too messed up to do anything about it. As you know, I love a beta hero. I thought Josh was wonderful.

Amy runs the cafe in Monkpark Hall – a stately home that is open to the public. I loved the view of a stately home from behind the scenes. The staff (many of whom come from generations of people who worked at the Hall) feel that the house somehow belongs to them as much as they belong to it – something the new administrator who comes in fails to recognise until it’s too late.

I really enjoyed reading about Amy and Josh (and Skrillex). I especially liked the fact that, by the end of the book, they were healing each other, but the problems had not miraculously gone away (because deep seated problems rarely do that!). All that talk of cake has made me hungry now. I shall have to go and hunt me down some pudding.
The usual note – Jane is a friend and we both write for the same publisher. I was a fan of her writing before I even met her. I got a review copy of this book from Netgalley, in return for an honest review.

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