BLOG TOUR – The Saturday Place by Alice Peterson

You know how sometimes a book comes along that gives you all the unexpected feels? It’s sad and happy with quirky characters. It’s unconventional but very real. It’s full of ups and downs and a few life lessons that you know you’re supposed to know, but need big reminder of sometimes because somehow there’s been a massive lapse somewhere in your memory and you’ve forgotten that you’re meant to know how these things are. The Saturday Place is one of those books!

Blurb:

Three perfect strangers who help each other to believe in love again.

Holly’s husband died, and she’s lonely. She needs to do something to save herself, quickly. Next thing she knows she’s interviewing for a voluntary cooking job, surprised to be ambushed by a scruffy man who looks like he has a past.

Angus has messed up. He’s lost the respect of his family and has none for himself. If it weren’t for his brother and friend who run the café, he’d be sleeping on the streets. Angus is about ready to give up – until he meets Holly, who sparks something in him.

Then Lauren arrives from the homeless shelter. She came to London with nothing but an old train ticket, a teddy bear, and the clothes on her back. With no family, no home, no friends, she doesn’t know what love is. People scare her. She’s terrified of Angus and Holly. At first.

Each of them finds themselves in the Saturday café at a time when they need something to grab hold of. It might have to be each other…

My Review:

Holly’s life has not taken the route she expected it to take. Her beloved husband Jamie died very suddenly. He was her entire world, and as they hadn’t had any children, she is now left completely bereft. She finds herself seemingly unable to continue with the simplest of things and is unsure how she’s going to be able to keep going without Jamie. She’s literally lost.

She realises that she can’t continue in this vein and considering her options, decides that volunteering might be a plan. After all, she figures that doing something for others might take her mind off her own sad predicament. And so she finds herself at the Saturday café, a place run by Nina, where anyone needing a meal can come and find food and companionship, once a week. She fully intends leaving … surely this is not something she can do? But something draws her back to the place week after week, until she’s a comfortable regular.

Before she knows it, she becomes a mentor to Lauren a young girl who she’s asked to take under her wing. Together with Angus, troubled brother to grouchy head chef Scottie, Holly becomes the loving support system that Lauren has never known. But often, when you’re supporting others, you discover the comfort that you didn’t know you’ve been searching for all along. She cannot imagine the journey that the Saturday place is going to take her on!

What a gorgeous book! It never wallows in itself, or becomes miserable or too soppy and yes, it’s about hard issues: homelessness, loss, cruelty, and the sheer lack of care that humans can show towards each other – often towards those closest to them. But every single thing is dealt with sensitively and with empathy and warmth.

The character development is marvelous. It’s wonderful to follow each of the three main characters, Holly, Angus and Lauren as they grow and flourish, but for me the subtle, stand-out character is Nina. She runs the Saturday café with strength and dignity that she seems to lend to all who come into contact with her. She often comes across as rushed and flustered, but always maintains a quiet, steely determination underneath it all. She has a knack of knowing exactly what (or who) every broken person who comes across her path needs, and her innate wisdom is always spot-on. I think we all need a Nina in our lives.

Most Important Message From This Book: