A wonderful summer read!
In this book we are transported to the Maldives and stops around the USA. It follows the story of Jenny and Marianne - best friends and working partners. Lucy steps up to the challenge of opening a bookshop in a top end resort in the Maldives but it’s not all plain sailing. I loved the characters and the beautiful setting. This book kept me turning the pages from start to finish. A wonderful read.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

"The Holiday Bookshop" is a story of friendship and love. Marianne and Jennifer have been friends forever and helped each other through difficult times. Now they run their own bookshop in their hometown in Cornwall. They have different personalities and tend to play to their strengths - Marianne is the ideas person and happiest front of house, while Jenni is a details person and likes a good plan. When Jenni starts to think that she is being taken for granted and, on a whim, applies for a temporary job at a remote Pacific island resort, the relationship hits a decidedly rocky patch.

What will happen at the end of the summer? Has Marianne finally found her "one and only"? Will Jenni step away from work long enough to find love? An engrossing holiday read.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for a pre release copy in return for an honest review.

A great holiday read....

Jenny and Marianne are childhood friends, who after university decided to open a bookshop in their home seaside town.

The business is chugging along nicely, Jenny has moved into the flat able the shop and spends every spare minute working .... Ewan - Marianne's brother has returned to start life as a lifeguard and moves into Jenny's spare room.

Meanwhile Marianne has just started a relationship with an author Drew who has temporarily moved into the area.

One evening while Jenny is surfing the internet, she finds a potential job for 3 months to open a bookshop in a resort in the Maldives, while Marianne and Drew as a spur of the moment to do a road trip to the USA. A major falling out ...and the story follows both Marianne and Drew in the USA and Jenny's trip to the Maldives, while Ewan looks after the bookshop!

Great read, laughter, tears and love , sea, sand and sex... what more could you want from a holiday read?

Needless to say there

Marianne and Jenny run a bookshop together. However when the opportunity comes along to travel they both take that opportunity as their friendship isn't what it once was.
As Marianne travels in America and Jenny opens a new bookshop on a tropical island the friendship seems more broken than ever.
Marianne and her boyfriend have the adventure of a life time while Jenny tried, and fails to open a successful book shop hampered by Blain who seems out to destroy her.
A really lovely boom about living in the moment and about friendship and love. Highly recommend this book.

I DNFd this book at 26%. The premise sounded great and I would like to thank the publisher for approving me, but unfortunately this book just didn’t grab me. In a saturated womens’ fiction market, I feel life is too short to slog through books of this kind. Not for me and I wouldn’t recommend. Sorry!

The book had real potential and I can't quite decide why it didn't grab me, but it didn't, and I never felt compelled to pick it up to discover what was going to happen next, which was a shame.

Planner and thinker Jenny finds herself taking the job of a lifetime - creating and establishing a bookshop on an resort in the Maldives. Can she make a success of it before her time on the island runs out?

Best friend and business partner Marianne is the flamboyant and impromptu one, who jets off to tour the United States with boyfriend Drew. Will their holiday be a success?

A perfectly pleasant read, the locations were all beautifully described and the characters were all believable enough. The book wasn't quite what I expected from the synopsis though, I found that quite misleading.

This was a very pleasing summer read to transport you to The Maldives and several parts of America.

The main characters are quite charming, without delving too deeply into their characters and back story. It is an easy read with a pleasing conclusion.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Best friends Jenny and Marianne have run a successful bookshop together on a Cornish beach for over three years. They complement each other well - Marianne is creative and full of ideas, Jenny is forward thinking with a sharp business brain. But now Marianne wants to go off on an extended US road trip with new boyfriend Drew, Jenny is left feeling betrayed and let down, and impulsively takes a job that will see her spend three months in the Maldives launching a bookshop at a high-class resort.
With Marianne's brother Evan left behind to run the bookshop, both girls set off to follow their new dreams - will things go as planned, and more importantly, will the split spoil their friendship?
This is a wonderful holiday read but the story also had unexpected depth in its exploration of both Jenny and Marianne's journeys of self-discovery, Friendship and romance are both strong themes here, too, and there are plenty fun moments to enjoy, especially in Marianne's madcap adventures in Las Vegas. The Maldives are portrayed as the perfect paradise I've always imagined - who wouldn't want to lie and read on a hammock on a golden beach with waves lapping on the shore and turtles swimming in the water? But the author avoids cliches, presenting the Maldives as more than a holiday destination by exploring the opportunity for conservation.
Reading this book, I feel I've been on a wonderful journey of discovery that has taken me from east to west, with a feast of friendship and romance to enjoy along the way.

Marianne and Jenn have been running their bookshop on the coast for three years but both feel they need something else.
Jenn applies for a position opening a bookshop in a holiday resort in the Maldives at the same time Marianne decides to have an American Road Trip with her boyfriend. Jenn will be away for three months and Marianne for two.
Things are decidedly frosty between the two when they leave for their adventures with Marianne's brother, Evan holding the fort back home.
This is the first time they have been away from each other for this long and soon begin to miss each other. But they are both determined not to contact the other so watch each others adventures on Instagram. However, things have a habit of not going to plan!

I would like to thank Netgalley, Penguin Random House UK and Lucy Dickens for the E ARC of this book.
We meet Jenny who runs a bookshop in her home town with her best friend Marianne. Jenny is not a risk taker but one night she fills in an application form for a job in the Maldives, to revamp the bookshop in an inclusive resort for 3 months. Low and behold she gets the job and finds herself on this wonderful island, leaning new skills, making friends and doing her upmost to make the bookshop a success.
Her time is not all sandy beaches and sun, she has to overcome some hostility for staff members, work out how to get more people using the bookshop before management decide to close it. Add to this the fact that she is not talking to her best friend. Can Jenny reach out before it is too late?
I enjoyed this book, good characters and plot line. I liked that you got not only Jenny’s story but Marianne’s as well. Both of them grow in the book and you see that they are great friends who may be needed time apart to appreciate what each other brings to not only their friendship but their business as well.
If you are looking for a good summer read, pick this one up.

I instantly liked that Lucy Dickenson had chosen the pseudonym Dickens for this book, as Dickens of the Charles variety is my favourite author, but sadly this book did not live up to the name.

I am definitely more jealous of the bookshop on the Cornish coast than in the Maldives, but that’s because I like stormy English seas rather than hot tropical beaches.

My first issue is that the synopsis is not truly accurate to the plot of the book, which wasn’t an enormous problem, but if you’re expecting something and end up reading something different, it’s not ideal.

I found Jenny and Marriane a bit jarring for me. They had this friendship that I felt was being shoehorned into a romantic plot and it didn’t work. Neither character acted like adults and I didn’t get the impression that their friendship jelled at all. None of the other characters really left a lasting impression on me either, perhaps Evan to a certain degree, but none were particularly memorable.

I did like the feeling of escapism and travelling, but I feel if you’re going to set one side of the story in the Maldives and half in America then you really need to explore those settings, otherwise it’s a story that really could have stayed in Cornwall.

It was a pleasant read and nothing stood out as particularly bad about it as such, but it’s not going to be one that I recommend as a must read.

It does improve as it goes along but you have to persevere for at last half of it, if not 3/4 to get there. It’s all a bit clunky, there wasn’t much flow and it was just missing that happily-ever-after spark I was expecting.

I had high hopes for this, as have read one of Lucy's previous books, but was sadly very disappointed.
I found the book clunky to read, no flow with descriptions or conversations, and I couldn't relate to key characters Jenny and Marianne in the slightest!
Jenny and Marianne have a bookshop in their home town by the sea with dreams of travel and both leave on their adventures at the same time!! For me not a great start.....
It felt like there was loads to fit in but only for the purpose of fitting it all in the book, rather than being relevant to the story. A chance to travel whilst we were all under lockdown perhaps...
Not for me.
Thanks to NetGalley for the early read.

I've loved the author's books when she was writing as Lisa Dickenson - they were so uplifting and hilarious, I really couldn't have enough of them.
However, the more different names she uses, the less interesting the books are. She's started to write books around "something" - let it be a dog or, like now, hlidays in the USA and on the Maldives. I would enjoy "The Holiday Bookshop" more if it didn't feel like reading a tourist guide. The beginning was not bad, I fall for the characters and their friendship immediately, but then they had this huge row and left. Jenn to the Maldives and Marianne to the USA. And yes, the descriptions were gorgeous, and I can see that the author had fun when researching the places, and yes, I'm jealous as hell, but I would love a plot. A heavy - rough - concrete plot and not a story set around the places. It felt forced and not geniune and yes, it spoiled the reading experience for me. Which is a pity, as I had huge hopes for this book. I loved the escapism, I loved the idea but in the end the story didn't deliver.

I really enjoyed this book. A lovely light fun bit of escapism - wouldn't we all like the chance to run a bookshop on a tropical island. The highs and lows, and the sub plots all kept the story running - even if the ending relied on the main characters having a big budget for flights. Well worth a read.

This is the perfect holiday read. Two friends and business partners, who are joint owners of a book shop, feeling a bit jaded, and slightly out of love with their lives, embark on separate holidays. We are bound up in their seperate stories. Both wanting adventure and change, but feeling their friendship may be at stake.
I enjoyed this more unusual take on friendship. I liked their different take on how to effect a change in their lives, but didn't want to see them growing apart.
This book is involving and I liked how it moved between the characters and their choice of holiday, both very different, lovely to see how they really needed each other, but felt unable to reach out.
Fun, nice locations, romance and friendship a really enjoyable read.

What a lovely read. Easy and feel good. Love the characters, location and the bookshop.. A really good uplifting and feel good book. Immerse yourself in holiday mode.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an arc in exchange for an honest opinion

Sit back, put your feet up and get lost in this lovely tale of love, friendship and new adventures.
As best friends and business partners, Jenny and Marianne, find themselves in a bit of a slump, bickering between themselves and not feeling fulfilled in their own personal lives, they both make a big decision to make a big change in their lives. Although both should be happy with each other’s decisions, they clash and end up falling out.
As they go their separate ways we follow their adventures.
Generally a fun, lighthearted read if not slightly unrealistic in places. It builds pace towards the end and the last half was definitely my favourite part.

Jenny and Marianne run a bookshop and they both feel like they need a break, Jenny applies for a dream job to set up a bookshop in a holiday complex in the Maldives which is a temporary position.
The complex sounds like complete bliss and she meets some lovely people who work there. Unfortunately, not everyone is so lovely and onboard with the bookshop plans.
She finds some opposition and struggles to get the bookshop off to a flying start.
She realises that resentment back home was possibly a little misguided. She and her friend brought different skills to their business.
I really enjoyed this book combining a wonderful setting with a dream job proposition.

3.5 stars
Jenny and Marianne are best friends and own a bookshop in Cornwall. Jenny is fastidious about everything while Marianne is the complete opposite.
Marianne wants to go off on an adventure and Jenny is not happy and feels put upon. Hence the application for the bookshop in the Maldives.
The location sounded wonderful just the place I want to visit but for me the characters lacked something and I can't quite put my finger on why.
I felt in places it was lacking. The American trip that Marianne and Drew planned seemed a bit forced and silly ( the Mustang and the snake spring to mind)
For me I thought the bookshop was quite a weak plot as in weeks went by and not much happened. It seemed to come together at the end and felt really rushed.
It's an easy summer read.
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin UK for the ARC in return for an honest review.