Oh, I simply loved this book, last year Rebecca Raisin released Rosie’s Travelling Tea Shop which I absolutely loved too and it made me want to up and travel in my own van. In Rosie’s Travelling Tea Shop we met Aria who became Rosie’s best friend and who has a travelling book shop called the Little Bookshop of Happy Ever After, which I absolutely love, isn’t that a fabulous name! Aria’s bookshop van is one of my dreams. We also met Max who has a green food van and is in love with Rosie (the feeling is quite mutual).
This time Aria, Rosie and Max are off to France to travel to the many different fairs and events. I absolutely adored my time travelling with these three and even though I haven’t been to the places they visit, Rebecca Raisin does such a good job of describing them, I could see myself there.
Aria is a widow and has sworn off love, she promised her husband TJ that she would never fall in love again. Aria has a connection with a man she met briefly the summer before, Jonathan, who pops back into her life just as she is leaving the UK. This sets Aria off on an emotional journey of discovering what it is she wants and needs in her life and is a promise she made to her dying husband one she should keep or does she need to move on to be happy. I could really feel how torn Aria was about her feelings towards TJ and towards Jonathan, add to that unresolved issues with her mother-in-law and Aria’s confusion is palpable.
I loved the character of Jonathan who keeps popping up in Aria’s life on her travels through France and I was so hoping Aria could come to terms with her situation and allow herself to fall in love again. There are several scenes between Jonathan and Aria that provided me with a good giggle, Aria’s character can be hilarious at times.
I kept saying I was going to put this book down as the clock ticked closer to 11pm, but in the end, I had to keep reading and discover how it all turned out.
There was of course, the unlikeable character, Tori, who I don’t remember from the first book, but I’m pretty sure if I did I would have disliked her just as much as I did in this book. She’s one of those people out to cause trouble for anyone who might have something she doesn’t.
It was wonderful to reconnect with Rosie and Max again, I simply love their characters and I love the friendship they both have with Aria, they are each other’s family as well as best friends. The support they give each other throughout the story is completely real and their friendship provided me with lots of laughs, they are all such different kinds of characters but they work so well together.
I absolutely invite you to take a journey with Aria and her friends and I really hope there is more to come from this group of van-lifers.
Thanks to NetGalley and HQ Digital for a digital copy of this novel in return for an honest review.
#AWW2020 24/50
Claire's Reads and Reviews 
I read The Little Paris Bookshop on the Seine and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was looking forward to this one but didn’t realise it was connected to another book.
I also didn’t realise that Rebecca Raisin was an Aussie author!
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Yes, you can still read this as a standalone, but Rosie’s Travelling Tea Shop was so good you should definitely read it. The Little Bookshop on the Seine was fabulous as were the Antique Shop and the Perfume Shop. I love her books. And yes, we are very lucky she’s a Aussie 😊.
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