Book Review: The Woolly Hat Knitting Club (Chick Lit)

The Woolly Hat Knitting Club

by 

Poppy Dolan 

 

Publisher: Canelo

Publication date: 25th September 2017

Pages: 300

Format read: eBook

Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley

Finding happiness one stitch at a time

When Dee Blackthorn’s brother, JP, breaks both wrists not only is he in need of a helping hand – or two – but the knitting shop he owns can’t function. Sisterly duties take Dee away from her demanding job and she is unceremoniously fired amidst rumours of inappropriate behaviour. Dee is certain that her hot-shot nemesis, Ben, is behind it all but has no proof.

When Dee bumps into an old friend who is new mum to a premature baby she convinces JP to enlist his knitting pals to make lots of tiny woolly hats. Then Ben turns up denying involvement in Dee’s sacking and she ropes him into helping the knitting cause.

But before long Dee’s good intentions backfire and she risks losing her friends, her family and Ben, who’s turned out to be not so bad after all…

A feel-good romantic comedy about learning what life is really all about, The Woolly Hat Knitting Club is perfect for fans of Cathy Bramley, Tilly Tennant and Carole Matthews.

 

Delilah, Dee to her friends and family, has a high powered corporate job that she loves. She knows she is the best at her job always working long hours, going above and beyond for clients. Work is her life!

Dee gets unexpectedly fired, over rumours of her behaving inappropriately, which leaves her free to help her brother with his knitting and haberdashery shop.

I really enjoyed Dee and JP’s relationship. Dee is the big sister and it was plain to see she would do anything for him. JP had found his niche in life after dropping out of the corporate world following a break down. Initially knitting was used as JP’s therapy but he loved it and was good at it. With Dee’s financial help he opened a haberdashery and also started a knitting blog called “About a (Knitting) Boy”.

Dee throws everything into helping JP boost his business. This is what she is good at. But she always thinks she knows best and forges ahead without consulting JP. Cracks start to appear in their relationship. Cracks she may not be able to mend.

Dee is still seething over losing her job. She knows exactly who back-stabbed her and she is going to make him pay. But is she right?

The Woolly Hat Knitting Club is the perfect read for any knitting enthusiast. The story is filled with knitting, humour, community spirit and a tiny bit of romance.

Dee catches up with a friend that recently gave birth to a premmie baby and a scheme slowly develops across the plot to knit hats for premmie babies, getting the whole community involved in the venture.

There are plenty of familiar features for knitters, like CraftCon, knitathons and beginner knitting classes. All with a good dose of humour included.

The main characters are all likeable and relatable. Dee and JP have a wonderful relationship, they tease each other and bicker occasionally but you can see the closeness there. Ben, Dee’s work nemesis, knows Dee doesn’t like him and can’t understand why. He never gives up on her. Best friend Beckie is the quintessential new mum; she is scared, tired, and rundown but totally in love with her new baby boy. Maggie, the adopted Grandma, is the epitome of selflessness; she looks after her own ageing mother but always has time for Dee and JP, never once complaining.

The Woolly Hat Knitters Club is a feel-good story about finding what makes you happy, with themes of knitting as therapy, new motherhood, premmie babies, judging people by appearance, work overload, community spirit and men who knit.

‘Turns out that knitting is pretty perfect for those times when your head is reeling and your hands need something to do.” – Dee Blackthorn

Do men knit? I think we all know that men knit but do they knit and blog? I thought I would do a quick Google search and this is the first one I found; Good for a Boy Knitting  www.goodforaboy.com  It’s definitely worth a look.

Content: Minimal swearing

                 Clean romance

My Rating    4/5       🌟🌟🌟🌟

Poppy Dolan is a rom com afficiando. After watching When Harry Met Sally at the impressionable age of 14, she’s never stopped dreaming of having the perfect ‘meet-cute’, that one-liner that steals your heart and the grand romantic gesture to end all grand romantic gestures. Since her real-life dating experiences were more often situated at Nando’s than the top of the Eiffel Tower, she turned to fiction and wrote romantic comedies of her own. She self-published her first novel,The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp, in May 2012 and made it into the Kindle top 100.

Poppy lives with her other half in Buckinghamshire and now finds romantic value in a cup of tea appearing on her desk and someone who gives you the other bit of their Twix without being asked. Besides, the top of the Eiffel Tower is most likely very chilly and Ryan Gosling won’t return her calls.

Mailbox Monday - Jan 7th

 

Mailbox Monday is a meme started by Marcia of To Be Continued. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It now has a permanent home at the Mailbox Monday blog. Head over and check out other books received during the last week.

I received this gorgeous boxed set of Advanced Reader Copies from Simon & Schuster, due to be published in February 2019. The set are uncorrected proof copies and come with proof covers (not the final covers to be released in the shops). I adore proof covers they are always so stunningly simple but draw the eye. These three are no exception. Below are the published covers.

Back cover blurb

Germany, 1943: Twenty-six-year-old Rosa Sauer's parents are gone, and her husband Gregor is far away, fighting on the front lines of WWII. Impoverished and alone, she makes the fateful decision to leave war-torn Berlin to live with her in-laws in the countryside, thinking she'll find refuge there. But one morning, the SS come to tell her she has been conscripted to be one of Hitler's tasters: three times a day, she and nine other women go to his secret headquarters, the Wolf's Lair, to eat his meals before he does. Forced to eat what might kill them, the tasters begin to divide into The Fanatics, those loyal to Hitler, and the women like Rosa who insist they aren't Nazis, even as they risk their lives every day for Hitler's.

As secrets and resentments grow, this unlikely sisterhood reaches its own dramatic climax. What's more, one of Rosa's SS guards has become dangerously familiar, and the war is worsening outside. As the months pass, it becomes increasingly clear that Rosa and everyone she knows are on the wrong side of history.

Back cover blurb

In an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a first year student stumbles into her bedroom, falls asleep—and doesn’t wake up. 

She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics who carry her away, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital.

Then a second girl falls asleep, and a third, and panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. 

As the number of cases multiplies, classes are canceled, and stores begin to run out of supplies. A quarantine is established. The National Guard is summoned. 

 Back cover blurb

What would you do if you had the chance to change a pivotal moment from your past?

How far would you go to save someone you loved?
 
These are just two of the fateful choices a woman must face in this highly original and hauntingly evocative detective story of love and loss.

At the core of the enigmatic Stella’s story, past and present, is a mystery she is compelled to solve, a beautiful young woman who went missing fifty years ago – and a tragedy much closer to home she must try to prevent.

As Stella unravels the dark secrets of her family's past and her own, it becomes clear that everyone remembers the past differently and the small choices we make every day can change our future irrevocably.

This utterly original, gripping and mind-bending tale will stay with you long after the last page.

 What's arrived in my inbox this week

I  received this eBook through Rachelle's newsletter. She often offers free and discounted books to her newsletter subscribers.

Back cover blurb

When Lexi Burke escaped the remnants of a cold winter in Chicago for the beaches of Kauai, it wasn’t a random vacation. She left the hectic pace of Burke Enterprises behind with enough money to retire at age thirty-two, intent on settling into the idyllic existence of island life. Until she met local photographer Derek Mitchell—a talented man with a grudge against rich tourists.
From art night to snorkeling lessons, hiking, and chopping coconuts, Lexi can’t talk herself out of spending time with the handsome, hardworking man who knows the value of every dollar. She also can’t find a way to tell him the truth about herself. But then Derek is selected to help in a benefit at a masquerade ball as one of the eligible bachelors up for auction. Lexi must decide whether to wear a mask or unveil her true self and risk losing Derek’s trust and a chance at love. 

 What I'm looking forward to reading:

This week I've picked At the Wolf's Table. I love anything WWII and this book looks like it is filled with danger, intrigue and heartache.

Is there anything here that has caught your fancy and will be added to your TBR list?

Book Club Book Review: The Wrong Callahan (Rural Romance)

Book Bingo 2019 'A book written by an Australian Woman' 

      The Wrong Callahan

by

Karly Lane 

 

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Publication Date: 28th November 2018

Pages: 326

Format Read: Trade paperback

Source: Publisher via Beauty & Lace book club.

It had been two long years since Lincoln Callahan had found himself in front of the gates to Stringybark Creek. He was in the army then - a lifetime ago. Linc had always been the unsettled Callahan, looking for danger, the one who couldn't wait to leave the family farm.

This time he was back for his little sister, Hadley's, wedding. From far and wide, the Callahan relatives were streaming toward Stringybark Creek.

Linc's little brother, Griffin, was the steady son, the one who stayed at home, the one who did the right things. And now, the one who had feelings for city-girl, Cash Sullivan.

For Cash, the offer to manage her best friend's luxury beauty spa tucked away in the country had come at the right time. She knew she needed to make smarter choices in her life, starting with the men she dated, and an enforced break in the country seemed the right way to consider her options.

When Linc sets eyes on Cash at a family dinner, their swift attraction floors him. But Cash is his brother's girlfriend...what was he thinking?

As Linc, Griff and Cash form an uneasy triangle, each of them have personal demons to face before they can open their hearts.

The Wrong Callahan’s setting is Stringybark Creek, a family farm in Rankins Springs, in the heartland of the NSW Riverina. A small rural town where everyone knows everyone’s business and you can’t make a move without everyone knowing about it. This comes as a bit of a shock to city girl Cash Sullivan who is in town to help out at best friend Savannah’s Day Spa. Cash has always kept to herself but the friendly and welcoming neighbours, the Callahans, soon have her wondering what it would be like as part of a real family.

Cash has always been attracted to ‘bad boys’ and it has always left her heartbroken. Maybe the reserved Griffin Callahan is just who she needs in her life and it’s hard not to spend time with him when the matchmaking Callahan women keep pushing them together.

Linc hadn’t been home to Stringybark Creek since he left the army, two years ago. He was the son that couldn’t get away from the farm fast enough but has returned a hero in everyone’s eyes.

As soon as Linc sets eyes on cash he feels a strong attraction. An attraction that he is finding difficult to resist.

Lane has delivered exactly what the genre promises; a rural romance with all the feels and characters to fall in love with (a whole family of them) but not all squeaky clean.  Cash has a past she would rather keep hidden but she has turned her life around and is determined not to follow in the footsteps of her parents.

Lane raises the question; do you have a type when it comes to relationships and can this be changed?

The whole Callahan family is back home for Christmas and one of the siblings, Hadley’s New Years Eve wedding. I love the Callahan family but they aren’t as perfect as they seem when you dig a little below the surface.

Behind the romance the story has themes of sibling rivalry, close knit families, the silent but catastrophic PTSD and the all consuming trauma of a war zone.

All the way through this story I was thinking how much I wanted to read Griff’s story and yes!! I find out it is book 2 ‘Mr Right Now’. And what’s with Harmony? Will Hadley’s marriage last? So many questions I can’t wait for the rest of this series.

The story pulled me in from the start and wouldn’t let go until the very last page.

Content:  Some steamy scenes but the sex is behind closed doors.

My rating    5/5      🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

*This review is part of the Beauty and Lace book club.

The Wrong Callahan is book #1 in the Australian Women Writers challenge 

and part of the Booklover Book review Aussie author challenge 

Book 'W' in the AtoZ challenge 

#BookBingo2019

 

Karly Lane lives on the beautiful Mid North Coast of NSW in Australia. A certified small town girl, she is most happy in a little town where everyone knows who your grand parents were. She writes women’s fiction – everything from romantic suspense to family sagas and life in rural Australia.