Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Shop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan

I read Jenny Colgan’s ‘Meet Me at the Cupcake Café’ last year, and after a bit of a slow start, I really enjoyed it. This was also true of ‘Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Shop of Dreams’ although if anything I preferred this book.

Rosie is an agency nurse living in London with her boyfriend Gerard, who is summoned to the Derbyshire Dales to look after an elderly relative. Feeling put upon and against Gerard’s wishes, Rosie is not looking forward to her time away from the city. After a while though she realises that this time away might do her and her relationship some good…

One aspect of this story that I really liked was that Lillian, the elderly relative, has her own story to tell throughout the book which was very touching. Reading about her life as a young woman as well as her life now definitely added to the book making Lillian just as much of a main character as Rosie. I also felt that Jenny Colgan dealt with both the issues of growing old and those of looking after an elderly relative, in a very thoughtful and moving way.  There were, however, a number of other supporting characters throughout the story that I felt could have been developed slightly more, but this is my only real negative point.

I also enjoyed the setting, but being a Derbyshire girl myself I may be biased! I felt that ‘Lipton’ the fictional village setting of the book, acted as a really good backdrop to the story. It was easy to picture village life, and understand how all the characters fit into the story without too much need for the usual ‘coincidences’ that feature in a lot of books.

Overall I thought the story was well written and a lot less predictable than I imagined it would be, but still with a very satisfying ending. I would recommend this book, especially to anyone with expewrience of village/country life! 

08/10