The Little Shop of Hidden Treasures by Holly Hepburn

 

When Hope loses her husband, she fears her happiest days are behind her. With her only connection to London broken, she moves home to York to be near her family and to begin to build a new life.  
 
Taking a job at the antique shop she has always admired, she finds herself crossing paths with two very different men. Will, who has recently become the guardian to his niece after the tragic death of her parents. And Ciaran, who she enlists to help solve the mystery of an Egyptian antique. Two men who represent two different happy endings.

The Little Shop of Hidden Treasures is the latest release by Holly Hepburn and I fell in love with this book right from the moment I saw the cover, shallow of me I know! The little cosy welcoming street on the cover depicts the street that houses the Emporium so well and I completely lost myself in this story.

Hope is a young widow who is taking a new path in her life, moving back to her childhood roots to be closer to her family but her next step she wasn’t so sure on until she stumbled across the spellbinding Emporium that she remembers from her younger years and her next step seemed to have found her.

In her early days in her new job a discovery is made that opens up a new project for her but will she find more than she is looking for in her research.

This is so much for than just a cosy little romance that I usually love to escape into this storyline has so much to discover and I was as intrigued and invested as Hope in discovering the background to the story of Elenor Lovelace and each time a new piece of information was revealed and the story be completed another exciting little tit bit would emerge to continue and spark my intrigue again.

The storyline does touch on loss and grief and the way it can affect people in different ways but it is by no means a depressing novel it is full of hope, healing and new beginnings. Little Brodie in particular touched my heart and even I was grinning like a Cheshire cat towards the end when her healing process took a step in the right direction.

The friendships and community feel in this novel really gave the book a welcoming and uplifting feel and although I read this book as a whole I can imagine those who read it in the four parts felt like being reunited with old friends each time. It did feel a little drawn out, like it could have been a little shorter but I think this probably worked well for the individual parts and only had a little effect when put together as a complete book but I still enjoyed this book thoroughly none the less.

The romance was a little predictable but also faced realistic bumps along the way so this didn’t affect my enjoyment of the novel especially when there were other things going on around the romance element to keep you intrigued.

Holly Hepburn has kicked the year off with a book of discovery, healing and romance that I definitely recommend.

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