This book is such a refreshing delight! Just as one of the main characters, Claire, is told that she needs time out from her career because otherwise the stress will permanently damage her health, this is the perfect time out for anyone wanting an escape and a thoroughly enjoyable read! It will give you a real feel-good injection!
Claire and Ash literally bump into each other quite by accident and the immediate attraction is mutual. But life happens … it’s messy and it gets in the way. Claire is so focused on her work that she barely notices her ill health until she’s absolutely forced to. And when she finally takes that step off the hamster-wheel that her life has become, she realizes that she doesn’t actually know much about what goes on around her. She’s been living in her little coccoon, not noticing much else.
But when you take the time to smell the roses (or the coffee – big focus on coffee here, I loved it!), it’s amazing that your life takes turns for the better. Suddenly your life starts to take on a whole new meaning that you didn’t even know you were looking for. That perfection you’ve been striving for all along, might be ok, if there’s a bit of messiness thrown into the mix. It’s really not always a bad thing. You meet new people, who you initially think you can’t stand, but who you quickly come to see that you actually quite like! And then those people start to teach you things about yourself that you never even knew!
Life’s funny like that!
I loved the interaction between Claire and Hilda … in fact I just about loved everything about Hilda (and let’s face it, Claire needed a bit of a shake-up). She’s no-nonsense and a whole lot of sass for her age, and she’s of quite a tidy age, not that it bothers her. She’s not going to waste time sugar-coating things, so just keep up, buckle up and enjoy the ride! I think for me, the most important theme was that of community and how bringing people together creates the most amazing bonds. You think you’re doing something for yourself, but then it turns out to be so much bigger than that. You end up paying it forward in ways you could never even imagine!
I’ve never read any of Jules Wake’s books before but will definitely be going back to look for her previous titles. This gets a glittery 5-star thumbs up from me. There’s so much doom and gloom going on around us that it just puts a big smile on my face to read a heartwarming and uplifting book like The Saturday Morning Park Run – and no, it’s not just because I read it from the comfort of my couch, with copious cups of sweet tea, while I was reading about people doing exercise!! How can you even think it!!
Thanks so much to RaRa Resources for inviting me on this delightful blog tour. Take a look at what other book bloggers are saying about this gem of a book …
Pre-order Links (releases on 29 August):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peony-Place-Jules-Wake-ebook/dp/B07K2MGMN9/
https://www.amazon.com/Peony-Place-Jules-Wake-ebook/dp/B07K2MGMN9/
Author Bio:
Jules Wake announced at the age of ten that she planned to be a writer. Along the way she was diverted by the glamorous world of PR and worked on many luxury brands and not so luxury brands. This proved fabulous training for writing novels as it provided her with the opportunity to hone her writing and creative skills penning copy on a vast range of subjects from pig farming and watches, sunglasses and skincare through to beer and stationery.
She writes best-selling warm-hearted contemporary fiction for One More Chapter as Jules Wake and under her pen name Julie Caplin, she writes the Romantic Escapes series.
Between them, the two Js have written fourteen novels, The Saturday Morning Park Run being the latest.
Social Media Links:
Twitter @Juleswake
https://www.facebook.com/juleswakewrites/
Instagram: juleswakeauthor
Jan's Book Buzz 
Will definitely be checking out this book 🙂 xx
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