Review - Chocolate Shoes & Wedding Blues by Trisha Ashley

Absolutely delightful!

Tansy lives in London with a boyfriend who critisises everything she is and does, and they don’t have the best relationship in the world.  She moved into his flat and has never felt that it was her home.  Home to her was with her Aunt Nancy in the village of Sticklepond where she used to spend each weekend while Richard played golf and visited his over-powering mother.

When Aunt Nan dies, devastated by the loss that she has left in her life, she inherits the shop and the house and after a refurbishment "Cinderella’s Slippers" is born. They sell wedding shoes and shoe related items, even chocolate shoe shaped wedding favours.  Aunt Nan has also recorded some tapes telling Tansy about her life and a few of her secrets along the way and tells her exactly what she wishes for. 

While her ex-boyfriend is trying to win her back, she’s busy building up her business and is absolutely loving that and being back in heart of village life.  He’s also reading something from his past, which he is finding most disturbing.  In the house next door, Tansy finds out that widowed actor Ivo has moved in. He’s moody, he’s miserable and he’s ignorant. He is also tall, dark and handsome.  

This book was a pure pleasure to read.  A true fairytale village, with wonderfully created characters, transported me to another place that I never wanted to come back from.  I really wanted to live there.  Trisha Ashley is a brilliant writer; she has such a clever way of making everyone and everything in her books feel familiar and like you’ve known them all your life. 

Tansy baked a lot to help her through the upsets in her life and the way that the food was described made you literally drool with hunger and smell the delicious aromas of home baking. 

The characters from this book, link beautifully to past books that Trisha has written,  This really was a fabulously feel-good read which was definitely a real page-turner with a perfect ending!   I absolutely loved it and could have carried on reading it forever!

Trisha Ashley, an award winning author, was born in St Helens, Lancashire and studied architectural glass at Swansea Art College. Since then she has supported her writing habit by taking on a diverse series of part-time jobs, including working for a lead light maker and plumber and painting portraits. She has now given up her fascinating but time consuming hobbies of divorce and house moving and settled in North Wales.

Trisha writes occasional articles and stories, has many years' experience of manuscript assessment (she is part of the www.storytracks.net team) and has judged short story and novel competitions.

She loves exploring food, gardens and old houses and these preoccupations are a recurring theme in her novels. When she has a little spare time, Trisha loves to walk on the nearby beach or stroll around the world-famous Bodnant Gardens, and also paints, mainly in oils.

Trisha Ashley is a member of the Society of Authors and the Welsh Academi.

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You can learn more about Trisha at her website www.trishaashley.com

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