I am thrilled to be on the Blog Tour for Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering!
Andi Glover loves nothing more than a good book.
Any book in fact because when you’re raised by unconventional parents who think school’s for squares, alongside a deeply conventional sister who escapes home as soon as she can, fiction is eminently preferable to reality.
The only problem is that fiction isn’t the best way to learn about the real world. When Andi starts her new live-in job at Templewood Hall for the eccentric Lady Dawe and her enigmatic son Hugo, it’s tempting to think she’s fallen into the pages of one of her favourite gothic novels.
But the plot twists at Templewood Hall are stranger than fiction and it’s not long before Andi questions if she’s living in a romance novel or a whodunnit. Bumps in the night, a missing heir, ghostly apparitions and secrets that have been kept for generations – the mysteries mount up. Then there’s the inscrutable gardener who seems to appear when needed – is Andi right to hope for a happily-ever-after end to her story?
My Review
Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Happily Ever After is a Gothic-inspired mystery with a slow-burn romance that picks up pace towards the end.
Andi arrives at Templewood Hall and is accosted by a rude gardener before she is interviewed for a position that she hopes she’ll get because she has no qualifications for anything else and nowhere else to go.
She lived a pretty unconventional life with her parents, moving around regularly and living in a converted bus. An opportunity arises for her to have a more normal life, though I’m not sure her position at Templewood Hall is anything close to normal!
Tasked with cataloguing the many books in Lady Tanith Dawe’s library, Andi lets her love of books create a whimsical dream of falling in love and marrying the rather gorgeous son and heir, Hugo. However, she is covertly given the real reason for Lady Dawes’ wanting the library organised, and it has a bit of a twist.
Is there romance? Yes, there is, but it doesn’t pick up speed until the book’s latter pages.
But Andi’s love of the classics is evident in her dreams of what might be, and the chapter headings are a great nod to those classics. Some may find Andi a difficult character to like. She doesn’t always appear to help herself, but things change as the story progresses, and she has the ending she deserves.
I tell you what, that Lady Dawes – she is a piece of work! A bit deluded!
For me, the hero of the book was the feline, called The Master (we never find out his real name!), who smells of fish and takes a real shine to Andi, being her shadow, trying to sleep in her bed, and even getting her out of some scrapes!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an ARC.
Purchase Link https://mybook.to/happilyever
Author Bio –
Jane Lovering is a bestselling and multi-award winning romantic comedy writer. Most recently Jane won the RNA Contemporary Romantic Novel Award in 2023 with A Cottage Full of Secrets. She lives in Yorkshire and has a cat and a bonkers terrier, as well as five children who have now left home.
Social Media Links –
Facebook: @jane.lovering
Twitter: @janelovering
Newsletter Sign Up: https://bit.ly/JaneLoveringNews
Bookbub profile: @janelovering
But I Smile Anyway... 