Lucy Diamond (2) (1970–)

Last year I was introduced to Lucy Diamond’s books (The House of New Beginnings) and instantly fell in love. Lucy’s books are full of warmth, celebrating female friendships through life’s up and downs. They are comfy reads that I associate with long summer days and nights (nights because you can’t help but get engrossed in the story). Naturally, I had to start reading On a Beautiful Day on a lazy summer weekend and continued to read for several days and nights (only interrupted by a show more pesky thing called life). What I love about Lucy Diamond’s books is how welcoming they are.
They seem to pull you in with open arms to the story, standing right alongside the characters.

I was very happy to become part of the group of women who make up the main characters. They all appear to be fun, happy and doing well in their life…until witnessing a nasty accident (at a birthday lunch no less) brings their issues to the fore. India, whose birthday lunch it is, develops a fixation with one of the victims. But is it as simple as that, or does Alice remind her of something in her own past? Jo has come through a divorce and met a new man at the mechanic’s. But his daughter Maisie is hostile, causing Jo to question whether she wants to do this. Her sister Laura desperately wants a child, but nothing has been happening. When she discusses options with her husband, it drives him further away. But Eve has the deepest secret of all. She’s found a lump in her breast and is paralysed with fear about what to do next. Running down a client may just spur her into action…

While the characters all have big problems on their mind, there’s a lot of fun to this novel too. Lucy Diamond brings humour to the story through wayward children who do random things and so-cringe worthy-it’s-laughable moments. The strength of the friendship between the four women also shines through really strongly. Don’t dismiss this story as light and fluffy ‘chick lit’ though – it’s a story of reconciling your past, dealing with a difficult present and being able to look towards the future (even if it doesn’t hold what you expected). The book is carefully plotted and planned. The reader is never left hanging, wondering what’s happened to a particular character as the story turns to them at just the right time. The story also feels connected – meaning that the characters are closely interwoven within each other’s lives. Not once did I feel that there were four separate stories, or be unable to remember who was who. I’ve come to realise lately that creating unique characters that have one story is a special skill, and Lucy Diamond has it in spades. (Yeah, I meant that pun!)

Lucy Diamond’s books are perfect for reading when you just want to escape into another world. Definitely an author for the hot summer days, or long winter nights!

Thanks to Pan Macmillan for the ARC of this book. My review is completely honest.

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Christmas is traditionally the time of year where portions sizes are increased with the blessing of society and you can have alcohol out of a glass, rather than concealed in a travel mug, with your breakfast.
The only things that are smaller at Christmas are chocolates because these are purchased, and indeed consumed, by the tubfull, said tubs containing miniature versions of the same sweeties we gobble all year round. Oddly, whilst miniatures of many varieties of alcohol are available, we show more tend not to indulge in those, even if it does mean we can pretend to be on a long haul flight to somewhere warm and away from the family, and instead seek peace through the purchase of value sized bottles of alcohol.
That’s OK though, because the simple addition of a jaunty hand-knitted miniature Santa hat atop the bottle designates it as a festive treat, not a crutch or lifestyle choice.
Christmas is also the season of treats. Seasonal treats such as marzipan flavoured snacks (marzipan being nature’s remedy for sprouts) and the contented enjoyment of a state of torpor, usually observed in basking lizards, but during the festive season also observable in people who can’t be arsed to reach for the remote.
Of course, it’s also the season of gifts. Not just those practical gifts like socks, or games consoles, or an addition to a growing collection of bath salts the oldest examples of which practically have heritage status, but luxury gifts too, like cashmere headphone liners and so on.
Not to mention gifts to the self. These can take many forms. Most obviously, this can be, say, a OO scale starter train set kit featuring ‘The Flying Scotsman’, carriages, and extra track, a station or two, an engine shed, oh and some more track, for your two month old baby daughter.
But as with all the best presents, it’s the home made ones that are really appreciated, for instance giving yourself the gift of a three hour ‘walk’ on Boxing Day that entails a brisk stroll to the local, which is five minutes away.
Apparently, the internet gets rather busy on the afternoon of Christmas Day, as lots of excited people use their vouchers to download all sorts of stuff, while others are researching the return policy on bath salts. And of course, the downloading of seasonal offerings to your Kindle.
If you give yourself the gift of reading time, you might wish to consider the gift of downloading ‘Christmas at the Beach Café’.
It’s a novella, which might put off those who like to buy their books by the yard, but will appeal to those who have a busy time at Christmas and can consume a festive tale in a single sitting.
Evie, owner of the now popular and thriving beach café, is looking forward to her first Christmas with her new boyfriend in her new home. Are things going to be that simple and straightforward? Possibly not.
Christmas is also, of course, a time to get together with friends, or at least send them a Christmas card, or at least remember to check Facebook, maybe. If you read and enjoyed ‘The Beach Café’, then chances are that you’ll download and enjoy this too, and it is a little like having old friends round for Christmas, with the added bonus that you don’t have to hide the good sherry and you can get rid of them any time you like.
Not that you’ll want to, indeed the length of stay here is just about perfect, a seasonal tale that would be too thin for a novel, but is perfect for the novella form. And it is genuinely something of a treat to pick up the lives of Evie and her friends and family and the café community.
With ‘Christmas at the Beach Café’ Lucy Diamond has artfully created a pitch perfect seasonal story in exactly the right format. It is something that can be consumed in bite-sized portions, or in one sitting. It’s even good enough to be enjoyed without alcohol. It’s also, for a story set by the sea in an out of season seaside town, surprisingly seasonal.
A delightful Christmas treat. Cheers! show less

‘The Beach Café’ is, it’s true, about as substantial as the froth atop a cappuccino. But, just like store-bought coffee, it’s a treat and, just like a store-bought coffee with ten sugars and a shot of syrup, it’s sweet. It’s also amusing, which coffee rarely is and there the hot beverage analogy sort of runs out.
The plot is far from the most original in the world; Evie is unexpectedly left a beach café by her aunt and has to decide whether to take it on and deal with the show more inevitable resulting issues and change in her lifestyle, or not. Also, just possibly, there’s a chance she might find true love among the sausages.
In fact, Lucy Diamond has written a charming, humorous tale here.
Her heroine, Evie, is a fabulous character, who actually kicks a little against the inevitability of her having to give up a job she is unhappy with and an unfulfilling relationship in order to go and manage a café in a fantastic location with huge potential whilst simultaneously falling in love with a charming yet mysterious stranger who also happens to be a wonderfully talented chef, with a dog. Evie, we are given to understand, is the ‘black sheep’ of the family, not just because of her hair but because she is not awfully over-achieved like her sisters.
There are few things to be gotten out of the way before Evie can take up residence in the beach café and the story moves into what anywhere else than this cosy and picturesque community would be high gear. The disapproval of her family has to be dealt with, as does their scorn and their lack of faith in her ability. She also has to explain to her boyfriend that he won’t be wanted behind the counter, or indeed in her life. And of course she has to deal with issues once she gets to the café.
The little seaside community is well drawn. There’s the waiting staff in the café for a start, who are by turns gobby, or clumsy, or unreliable, and which all come under the heading of ‘teenagers’. Then when the café gets into full swing there are the pressures of many people all wanting ice cream at once.
It is fun to read of Evie’s transformation from the black sheep to her own woman, and the parallel transformation of the café from a place to get drinks and snacks to, if not a community centre, then the centre of the community.
There’s also a sub-plot featuring a runaway teen. Naturally, Evie practically adopts the runaway once she recognises that the teen in question can be trusted to hold two plates of soup simultaneously without dropping them on the floor, herself or a customer, or all three.
It must be interesting to see the entire world as either potential customers (adults and young children) or staff (teenagers).
This is an enjoyable book with a story with plots and sub-plots satisfyingly wound together and wound up by the conclusion of the novel. It’s probably not the perfect book to read on the beach, as it might make you concerned about the chaos, both in terms of the preparation of your BLT, chips and a cup of tea and in terms of the close, fraught personal and interpersonal relationships between staff and owner, including misunderstandings both comic and romantic, happening behind the kitchen door when you pop to the local café to get your lunch, but it is an excellent book to read if you fancy a trip to the seaside without going to the trouble of leaving your own armchair.
A novel titled ‘The Beach Café’ is unlikely to be about the fortunes of a young soldier on the Russian front during the Napoleonic wars, and there are a number of predictable elements here.
However, the author has taken only the finest familiar ingredients and combined them in a particularly flavoursome way to create something that, whilst not a classic, is subtle in places, reassuringly familiar in others and, as a whole, is certainly satisfying.
This is a café that one would feel confident recommending to friends, if they like that style of cooking. show less

This is a perfectly decent read, though slow to start - but once it gets going in the middle, I really enjoyed it, and was swept along by the lives of the three Jones' wives/women. Some of the storyline in the middle is top notch - dramatic without being melodramatic and very tense indeed.

Up until the end I was prepared to give it 4 stars but, sadly, the end chapters are just sooooo irritatingly sugary-sweet and everything is just sooo perfectly lovely and unrealistically happy-ever-after show more that quite honestly it set my teeth on edge - they're still hurting! - so my rating has dropped to a 3 star.

This author is obviously good, but needs an editor prepared to cut the c**p and stop the Mills & Boon-type overindulgence. I hope she gets that. show less