I don’t usually do whole reviews on popular romance literature. The 99p books I pick up on Kindle and stack up for holidays when long hours of idleness need light, frothy, fluffy or just sheer unadulterated cottage core aesthetics running down the page tend (sorry) to get a bit formulaic. My son and daughter summed up the essential plot twists over dinner one night this week: City girl with high flying job/ newly redundant/ flat mate issues gets to go to an idyllic spot by the sea/ a lake/ the mountains where after an initial argument with the local landlord/ estate agent/ hunk who carries the logs in, she discovers that the country is absolutely where she’d like to be and decides to set up her craft business/ move and marry the farmer/ fisherman/ local vicar after a 62% through fall out that turns out to be a misunderstanding about why he was hugging that other girl/ said he was finished with her to his best friend while she was hifing around the corner/ had done unspeakable things to that sheep. Only the names and professions are changed to protect the innocent.

I don’t care. Yes, they are like the Milky Way of the literary galaxy: the book you can read between meals and walk away from without feeling full, heavy or low in any way. As an occasional one-off, I thoroughly recommend a choc and chick lit weekend now and again, as long as I balance my literary diet with better, meatier tomes in between.

I love when I find a properly good writer who doesn’t follow the formula, or who injects enough difference into the mix to add a zest. Trisha Ashley, for example, who is good at adding a mystery re: relationships or reasons for being there, or Katie Fforde, whose heroines have moved on in age as she has.

And Heidi Swain.

Searching her Amazon page, it appears that I have quite a few of hers. It helps that she loves writing Christmas fiction, and that I love reading them. It also helps that they were well written enough for me to get the next book and the next book and the next… if they weren’t, I’d say so. I also like that there’s usually an extra element to the story so it’s not all romance, lust or liking from afar. Romance books really should be able to pass the Bechdel Test. Yes, we want the unrequited love, the mishaps and the mayhem, but we really need the representations of friendship, bonds and family relationships that rest on more than repeated assertions that he likes and you like and he likes you more.

In The Book Lover’s Retreat, the set up is that three friends, Emily, Rachel and Tori, have waited ages for the summer holiday of their dreams. Hope Falls is a book and a film that means so much to so very many people that the cottage used in the film is a place of pilgrimage and love. People sign up and wait years for the chance to pay ridiculous money and stay there. And these three friends have it booked for six glorious summer weeks.

Until Tori has to drop out. Her bank-rolling father pulls the funds, and tells her to get a proper job rather than waste her time as a dilettante. Rachel and Emily agree to go on, and choose a name off the waiting list to fill the empty space. Alex, though, turns out to be a man. Which rather puts the kibosh on Emily’s plans for living the summer as Heather, sleeping in Heather’s double bed and using Heather’s claw-foot bath.

I don’t need to tell you that the frustration she feels and takes out on Alex does dissipate, and you’ll have to read the rest to find out who ends up with whom. That’s not actually the selling point of this book for me: this book set me off thinking and for that I am grateful.

The point about The Book Lover’s Retreat is that they are all there on what is, essentially, a book pilgrimage. They seek out locations from the film, try to recreate scenes in the book, visit the physical landmarks mentioned or shown in film and book. Hope Falls, it becomes apparent, is a book that means so much to everyone there not becasue it is great or fantastic literature, but because it has built relationships and friendships. It’s one of those books that grandparent and young adult read and share, that friends gather and pass around, a life-changing, life-affirming book of joy. Each character has their own reason for being there, whether to remember a loved one, plan a different future than might have been or simply to find themselves in the character they admire most. Hope Falls acts as another character in the book, all be it one we only meet through the eyes of the others. And I loved it. If Hope Falls were a real book, I’d be right there. It sounds perfect: sort of a The Notebook meets Nights In Rodanthe meets The ShellSeekers meets …. well. Which books would you put there?

Which books/films made such an impact on you that you would love to visit or stay in the cottages where they are set? Which books played on your mind and made you rethink an action or course even slightly? Did any inspire you to write, act or create? Did any books have interior scenes that made you want to grab the patchwork quilts, light the firepit and sit by the lake talking into teh night? I have a few I’ve loved and lost contact with until, like an old friend, they fall into my hand again and I read them hungrily, loving the world as much as I did before. I may well write a post on them another time, but for now I’d just like to say thank you to Heidi Swain for reminding me of that feeling: the nostalgia of a good book, and the chance to experience that second-hand in her book.

***A WARNING*** I did, in the hopes that there was a real book, look up Hope Falls on Amazon. I’m not sure this is the one that would have inspired a film, let alone fans visiting the locations.

***AND A NOTICE*** The pictures come from my April Welsh holiday with my three adult children. We walked along beaches, visited writer’s cottages and found waterfalls to stand amazed beside. But no skinny dipping. I promise.

How to Hygge the British Way is my gift to the world. I don’t get paid for writing it, I’m not in it for the kudos, financial rewards, to become an influencer, work with brands or otherwise make any money from the blog. That’s why there are no ads, and any products I mention and recommend have either been gifted to me or bought by me with my everyday wages or donations from supporters. Every book I review has been bought and read by me, unless stated otherwise.

I do get a couple of pennies each time someone buys from the Amazon links on my page, as an Amazon Affiliate, but otherwise if you’d like to support me, I like to give something back in return. That’s why I write books. It always feels good if you get a book back in return for some money. You can find a full list of my books at my Author’s Page on Amazon, but especially recommended for this time of year are:

Cosy Happy Hygge: Setting up a rhythm to life and rituals to enjoy it to make for a more balanced life that handles waves and storms better. Lent is a season of rituals and resets. The book has small and easy ways to make your life flow with grace and happiness, which lead to more hygge.

Happier: Probably my most personal book, it’s the story of how I used hygge and the little things in life to help boost my happiness. I still go back and reread to remind myself what I need to do to be a happy human. And it’s always the little things.

I’m currently working on two book projects: I have a hankering to rewrite 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way, so it’s not available at the moment, but even dearer to my heart and my next stated aim is to finish and publish my next book, Simple Plus Cosy = Hygge. It will be about homemaking and how the home we create shapes the hygge we have. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of summer.

If you’d like to support me, but don’t want to buy a book, I have a Paypal.Me account as Hygge Jem. Every little helps, so even a few pence goes towards the books, goods and courses I use and recommend on the site. I’m grateful for every little bit that brings me closer to my dream of full-time writing, and I know I couldn’t still be writing if it weren’t for the support of many readers and friends out there. Thank you all for every little bit of support, emotional, physical and financial, you give me.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it or save it so others can enjoy reading, thinking about and living hygge as well.

The photo between post and promotions is a photo of the waterfalls on the Elidir Trail in South Wales. It’s a panoramic view, which I love. And the header is a chair from Dylan Thomas’ house in Laugharne, That was where we holidayed and I loved it. An absolute book lover’s paradise.