I loved this!
Finally a simple, easy to read book regarding sleep and sleep hygiene.

Firstly, I have to mention the design! WOW! This book is one of the most beautifully designed books I have ever seen/read. I would love to put the artwork framed and up on my walls in my house if I could. It is incredibly beautiful!!! I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but if this cover alone does not make you instantly reach out for this book then there must be something wrong with you!

I have struggled with anxiety, for the majority of my life and in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic I have really struggled with my sleep. I have read a lot of books and podcasts etc regarding sleep, and a lot of these books are quite difficult to follow and go to 'in=depth' with the science of sleep.
This book however got straight to the point with ideas and tips to help improve sleep hygiene. if course, it did mention a little about the stages of sleep - but it didn't alienate me by the science-based language. I felt like I could follow everything mentioned. The only downside for me, is that i wish it was longer!!!

I particularly liked the section about aromatherapy as this is something I am really interested in, and use myself already. 
I also have to mention the fact that the book mentions the musical Hairspray!!! (albeit briefly - but being a 'theatre-kid' this was very much appreciated haha)

I would love to get my hands on a physical copy of this to refer back to as and when I need it - also for the beautiful imagery within it!!

This book is straight to the point and very personable. It has some great ideas, and it also looks super pretty - what more could you want?! If you have struggled with 'sleep books' in the past, you will certainly enjoy and get a lot out of this!

This book made me angry. Because in the beginning, I felt like this could be my new favourite book but then it went downhill. I honestly didn't care about any of Penny's love interest at all.

I love that this book takes the love triangle trope up a notch and makes it a little more interesting. While I admit, this book isn't exactly what I expected - it was still a great read. I expected a little more humor and more of the rom-com element, but I got a lot more seriousness than I anticipated. Don't let that deter you though, it still made for a captivating read.

This is not my first book by the author. I had read One Stop and I liked that one. So naturally I was excited about it. It sounded like a fun book with an interesting plot and I glad to say that it was better than I expected. I could relate to penny and her dialogues made me laugh out loud more than one. If you looking for  acute rom com / chick lit book with great characters and good plot then, by all means, give it a go. You are going to love this love square!

I really enjoyed Laura Jane Williams' debut novel, "Our Stop' so I was delighted to get a NetGalley ARC copy of this one in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to enjoy this one as much, but it lacked some of the sweetness and pace of 'Our Stop'.

The plot sounded promising: after a long time on her own, cafe owner Penny Bridges meets a wonderful man. When her uncle is taken ill, Penny moves out of London to run his hotel for him. This is when she meets another man. And then another. She has to work out who is best for her, while also working out what she wants from life. 

***positives***
• I really liked how the author treated the issue of infertility. I've read too many other novels where there is a quick fix of some kind and it was refreshing to read an account of infertility without a surprise pregnancy.
• Penny and her sister's relationship was lovely and a really enjoyable part of the novel. They were warm towards each other, but not unrealistically so.
• I liked Francesco immediately. However, I can't be the only one to think his personality changed (for the worse) as we nearer the end? He became quite unpleasant at points.

***negatives***
• It was too easy to predict who Penny would end up with, and so the length of time taken to get there was frustrating. 
• Penny's friend Charlie was really underused. We were repeatedly told what good friends they were, but it wasn't -shown- and more on their friendship would have been a good balance to all the details of Penny's dates.

I'd recommend it as a light read, but

I read Laura Jane Williams's debut OUR STOP when we were in Australia last year. And it was like a breath of fresh air: the witty characters, classic British humour and evocative London setting were irresistable to me as I plodded through Aussie winter. I was missing home and it was the perfect antidote.

Williams's second outing, THE LOVE SQUARE is just as good. Set across both London and Derbyshire (not too far from my own hometown of Leicester), it is a tale of Penny, who has been down on her luck love wise... until like buses, three turn-up at once. It was a fun and enjoyable read, with Williams creating distinct and relatable characters as well as portraying an idea of romance that isn't the Hollywood glamour that we have come to expect, but something far more authentic.

Although, not my usual fare – you know that crime and thriller are more my thing – reading this during a very busy period at work has helped me switch off in the evenings. And made me very hungry with all the talk of delicious pasta.

Out now in ebook and out next week in paperback, but sure to pick up your copy.

The Love Square by Laura Jane Williams
Source: NetGalley and Avon
Rating: 4/5 stars

If there were ever going to be a poster child for unlucky in love, Penny Bridge would be the girl chosen!  Relationship after relationship has fallen apart, often disastrously for Penny and she is just about ready to give up on love altogether.  Just as Penny has determined to call it quits, the perfect man walks into her small café and everything changes. 

For three glorious weeks, Penny indulges in a love affair she has come to believe can go the distance.  Just as she is settling into her new romance, Penny is called away to her family restaurant that only she can run in her beloved uncle’s absence.  To be leaving behind her own little café and her newfound romance is devastating; to see her lover kissing another woman thirty seconds after she leaves, even more devastating.  This time, Penny is done and there will nothing but work for her in the future. 

And then the universe started laughing . . . .

As Penny begins to settle into her uncle’s place in the restaurant’s kitchen, she discovers she can get through anything, even heartbreak.  With her head down and her priorities straight, Penny begins to overhaul the restaurant and its menu and the locals love what she’s doing.  Business is booming and Penny passionately believes she has no room for anything else in her life.  She will get through her designated time away from her true home and then swiftly return to her little café, stronger and wiser.  

First in through the door is the younger local who travels often for work and brings a no strings attached sense of freedom to Penny.  Next up is the older, more mature wine seller who intrigues Penny in a way no other man ever has.  Last but not least to the party is Penny’s ex, who can’t understand why Penny ghosted him.  In all her ridiculous naivete, Penny believes she can date the two newcomers and she and her ex can just go back to being friends.  Needless to say, the situation becomes incredibly complicated and though Penny enjoys the company of all three men, it simply isn’t reasonable or sane to try and maintain three relationships simultaneously.  Choosing isn’t going to be easy and before Penny can make her final decision, it all blows up in her face. 

The Bottom Line:  I found The Love Square to be an easy breazy sort of read that is quite perfect for a rainy weekend.  There’s no mystery here, no great, just a woman trying to work through her life, her limits, and her grasp on love.  Truth be told, I found the men in Penny’s life to be more compelling than she, but I didn’t dislike Penny.  All the types of moments – sad, happy, laugh out loud, frustrating, and maddening – can all be found between the covers.  At its heart, this is as much about love as it is a book about self-discovery, facing some ugly truths, and owning what it is one wants and needs out of life.  While that all sounds like heavy reading, it really isn’t.

This book is a slight change of pace for me. Usually, I can be found with a murder to solve or a kidnapper to track down, but this was a welcome detour in my reading journey.

The story is emotional and heart-warming, and I really felt like a part of Penny’s story. The main characters were strong women, and the men seemed like the type of friends we would all like to meet in our lifetime.

I loved the funny antics the characters got up to and the ending just really sealed the deal and made this a wonderful read.

My thoughts: this is the second book of Laura’s that I’ve read, after reading our stop last year and absolutely adoring it I knew I had to read The Love Square too and it definitely didn’t disappoint.

We follow Penny, who after fighting cancer and freezing her eggs after having them fertilised with some German sperm, she feels like she’s ready to find love and maybe take her eggs off ice!

After falling in ‘friendship’ with Francesco, something happens within the family and she needs to move away, she is desperate to ask him to come with her but she’s just not brave enough.

6 months pass and she’s settled into her new life, she meets Thomas, who she very quickly learns is not “the one” but is always down for a bit of fun.

And then as if things aren’t complicated enough along comes Priyesh at the Christmas party, she seems to have found herself stuck in a live square with no idea who she wants!

What follows is absolutely hilarious and I absolutely adored it.

I had both the ebook and the audiobook, I won’t lie most of the book was read via audiobook because it was narrated by Carrie Hope Fletcher and she is a force to be reckoned with!

Laura Jane Williams has now cemented herself as an autobuy author for me and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘚𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘦

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

“You love me. It couldn’t be like this between us if you didn’t. You. Love. Me. And I love you! A man stood near the bar put his pint down to clap, slowly at first - clap, clap, clap - and then the woman beside him joined in, and then somebody else, until the whole pub was whopping and cheering and somebody shouted, ‘Kiss him Pen!’ and Penny turned and looked at these well wishers, and she froze.”

Penny Bridge has always been unlucky in love. Until she meets three, all of which are very different and come with their own perks and challenges. Penny needs to decide who is the one amongst all of the chaos of her life. 

I really liked the idea of this story and I think that it touched on a lot of important things but I just feel like it went on forever. I lost interest in the middle and if definitely was slow. In saying that though I continue reading because I needed to know what happened at the end! 

Author - Laura Jane Williams 
Publisher - Avon Books UK

The Love Square by Laura Jane Williams (6/29)

Rating 3.5 / 5 Stars

** Thank you to Netgalley, Avon Books, and of course, Laura Jane Williams, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Another meet cute, entertaining, feel-good, swoony, and adorable love story which ends with a smile on your face and an awwwwww. This book, although I’m giving it 3.5 stars, was truly a good read. 

Penny was such a fun heroine to read. She’s unlucky in love, well until she meets three amazing men over the course of a few dates. So what happens when she tries to see if one of them is her prince charming? Well, a lot of beautiful mess! We see Penny trying to choose wisely between her three suitors. Honestly, This is one of those situations where if polygamy was legal I would totally support it! All of these guys are so amazing. This book is the best romcom and it makes you laugh and cry at the same time. Penny has a lot of heartbreaking and emotional pieces to her story. We learn she lost her parents and is dealing with cancer which makes this story much more realistic than most. 

The only real con I found was the idea that Penny was still indecisive as we neared the end of the book. I mean, we have all heard of seasons fo the Bachelor/ette where the person falls in love with multiple people - I truly do not think this is possible. I believe there has to be something in your gut that draws you to one specific person - especially in Penny’s case. I wish she had been able to come to the conclusion sooner and we could have had a better ending. Of course, Penny made the best choice in the end - I just wanted it to give me more!!! 

Highly recommend.

We meet penny who has always been unlucky in love, she has a bit of a rubbish hand thrown at her too, combined with some of the disastrous dates she has been on and well, she just wants to be happy.
Then she is, she meets a wonderful man. Francesco. Fast forward, they are having wonderful dates, fantastic times together and everything is falling into place until its not. Penny moves away to help her uncle out and then she meets another wonderful man, but he isnt always around and then she meets a third man.
Penny is in a love square, but can she find the one? Each man brings something different to Penny and their relationship.

I loved this, Penny was a character who i connected with (not that i have had a life like hers but she was written so well) that i was really invested in her getting her happy ever after, because if anyone deserves it- its Penny. I felt she was strong willed, independent but there was a part of her that wasnt sure what she wanted and that made her believable, she was flawed. She messed up and it was honest.

I also really enjoyed getting to know her family and friends, they were supportive but also honest and guided her when she needed it, and gave her a talking too when she needed it as well. I also think that it dealt with serious topics in a senestive way, the handling of infertility was done i a delicate but open way and had my heart hurting. It was just a wonderful kick of contemporary, another sure fire hit from Laura. If you keep an eye on my blog, i have a q&a with her next month!

I was gifted an e-arc for the blog tour, but you can get your copy

This book is a cute fun read, mainly based around Penny a chef and cafe owner and the different relationships she gets entangled with and where she would like it to go.
Lovable characters and a good few laugh out loud. 

Thank you to Avon books and Netgalley for this advanced copy

I have to be honest with you all, this book made me MAD. Not necessarily because it was bad, but because it started off SO! STRONG!, only to run on for way too long, dragging everything out and making an already messy situation way messier than it needed to be. I started off rooting so hard for Penny and all of her love interests, but ended up pretty much loathing every single character by the end. Based on the first half of this book, it could have been a new favorite, but between a handful of tasteless jokes and all hell breaking lose in the worst way during the second half, this left a really bad taste in my mouth. Also, I found it really weird that the author chose to write Lizzo (like, actual real life Lizzo) into the story as a sort of love interest for another character???? It felt weirdly icky to me. Overall, this one was pretty much an all around miss for me and I am big sad about it.

TW: cancer, death of a parent, hospitals, IVF treatments, cheating, slut shaming

After thoroughly enjoying Our Stop I was looking forward to Laura’s latest novel The Love Square, sadly I’m a more than a little disappointed. 

This had so much potential, it was incredibly refreshing to meet a single, thirtyish Londoner not just looking for the perfect fairy tale ending on Tinder. Penny’s history has been challenging from an absentee father, the death of her mother from cancer and her subsequent battle with cancer herself. The novel explores her search for love alongside her considerations as to whether she’s ready to harvest her frozen embryos through a surrogate to become a parent alone. 

I found Penny incredibly irritating and lacking in depth, whilst I know the facts of her life from the trauma and her love of food, the reader never fully understands Penny. It felt very much as though you saw a different Penny depending on which man, she was keeping company with.  The title alone gives away that Penny has three love interests in the book and as a reader you’d usually find yourself rooting for one of them *thinks Hunger Games love triangle* but with this novel I didn’t care. I

The introductions of Francesco, Thomas and Paresh felt so rushed that again the characters lacked dimension. Spoiler alert but I found Thomas professing his love incredibly unrealistic given the views of his character we’d been shared previously. 

I agree with other readers about Charlie’s character, the lack of exploration of them left me as a reading feeling as though the inclusion of non-binary character was purely tick box. 

I think this book could have been executed better had time been taking in the first few chapters to fully introduce Penny before any of the men were involved. I also think having three love interests was too ambitious to allow the reader to be on the journey. All in in all it felt rushed to include what could have been incredibly emotive topics in a plot that had a lot of potential.

Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I struggled to get into this book it felt a little slow at start but after a while I enjoyed it and wanted to know what life she choose and who she would end up in.  I glad she finally got what she wanted in the end her dream man and a family

This book is a sweet, emotional love story. It is not a traditional romance in the two-main-characters-find-their -HEA sense of the word although Penny does find her HEA in the end. Penny is our single protagonist, and she finds herself suddenly with three diverse suitors to choose from. Each is a bit imperfect, true to life, and each has their pros and cons. 

In addition to the relationships between Penny and her suitors, this book delves into infertility and LBGTQA+ issues as well. Penny's relationship with her sister is sweet and very deep. 

I would have liked to have spent more time reading about the final couple's HEA, but overall this was a good read.

Not at good as her first book. Still enjoyed it but felt confused in places. Jumps from one character to the next and you don’t realise until half way through. Struggled to keep up with it

*TW this book addresses cancer treatment, infertility, death of a loved one

In this book our main character Penny achieved pretty much all of her life goals. She has her own business in the small cafe she owns and runs in London, her own flat (above the cafe) and a good work life balance (doesn't everyone want that!?). However there are things she is missing and this book follows her as she tried to find them. 

It seems to start well when she has a chance encounter with Francesco, who is the replacement bread delivery guy, and Penny instantly feels something. However a series of mis communications and a family emergency mean that Penny has to move away to help run the family gastropub. 

While running the pub Penny learns a lot about her self and comes across two other guys who, although the connection isn't instant like with Francesco, she enjoys spending time with. These two men couldn't be more different from one another and from Penny but could one of them be what she is looking for?

The book tackles some very difficult story lines, some which are common, but some which are less. I felt it approached them in a very real and believabe way as we watched Penny work through them. It also had good LGBTQ+ representations (Penny’s uncle and sister Clementine are both in stable same sex, long term relationships), and the presence of a gender non-binary character named Charlie who works alongside Penny was something that I think more books need. 

I really enjoyed reading about the way Penny interacted with (most) of the other characters and feel like she would be a really good friend, as for the most part, she is very likable and 'her own person'. 

My only real issue with this book was with one member of the Love Square, who changed quite a bit from the lovable guy we first met. The way he behaved at a certain point didn't sit comfortably with me and I don't feel the issue was addressed in an appropriate way by Penny... 

Overall I did enjoy this book, it was quite predictable at times and there are a few parts that I feel could have been changed a little to better fit the book and characters but it was a fun read for summer!

"His open heart made her softer. His ability to savor small moments rooted her in the present. His daily pledge to be her partner made her want to do him justice, too."

Hi everyone!
I don't even have the words to say how great this book is! I seriously can't find one thing I don't like about it. 

First of all, I want to say I've been in a big reading slump for over a year and that this book got me out of it so easily that I'm sad I didn't find it sooner.
The characters are great and well thought out, the plot is so intriguing: I laughed and cried but also got so mad I had to put it down.
I loved the writing style, it was neither too easy nor too hard, perfect for the story, with many parts to highlight. 
It had many lgbtq+ characters and examples of a non-traditional family.

So, if you're looking for a good romance book, you should definitely check this out!

P.S. A big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this book in advance.