VIVIEN'S HEAVENLY ICE CREAM SHOP.

VIVIEN'S HEAVENLY ICE CREAM SHOP by ABBY CLEMENTS.

SOURCE: Read and reviewed on behalf of fellow blogger Lindsay @ The Little Reader Library on whose blog my review appeared last week.

THE BOOK {According to the back cover}: When Imogen and Anna unexpectedly inherit their grandmother Vivien's ice cream parlour, it turns both their lives upside down. The Brighton shop is a seafront institution, but though it's big on retro charm it's critically low on customers. If the sisters don't turn things round quickly, their grandmother's legacy will disappear forever. 


With summer fast approaching, Imogen and Anna devise a plan. Rather than sell up, they will train up, and make the parlour the newest destination on the South Coast foodie map.

While Imogen watches the shop and conjures new marketing ideas, her sister flies to Italy to attend a gourmet ice cream-making course. But can their best-laid plans survive their warring family, tempestuous love lives - and the great British weather? One thing is for certain - this summer will be like no other ...

FIRST SENTENCE {Vivien: 35 Elderberry Avenue, Hove, East Sussex}: 'What's this one, Anna?' Vivien McAvoy asked, sitting forward in her velvet armchair and looking at the cake in front of her.

MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 89}: 'Retro ice creams,' Imogen said. 'Like Fab lollies?'
'Exactly. And those giant pink feet, Screwballs - do you remember the ones that had chewing gum in the bottom?' Students would be into all that, and well, everyone loves a nostalgia fix. Parents would be able to share the ice creams they loved with their own kids.'

MY THOUGHTS: What a wonderful cover, perfect for the book. What you can't see looking at the image is how the blue is actually embossed with the prettiest blue foil effect.

Light and fluffy and ultimately just about as sweet as ice cream itself, whoever coined the phrase 'holiday read' may well have had this in mind.

And yet, with memories of a certain retro ice cream parlour I've visited since I was a child in mind, as much as I really wanted to like this book it somehow didn't quite hit the mark.

OK, so its Chick-lit and everyone knows that part of the appeal of Chick-lit is that the reader is guaranteed their happy-ever-after ending. Nothing wrong with that per se but in this instance there were just so many incidents which got the happy-ever ending treatment that there was no mystery whatsoever as to how the plots, for there were several threads to the story, might play out.

Still, on the plus side, there were some rather scrumptious sounding ice cream recipes at the end of the book which should keep fans of the foodie novel happy.