loved this book! even though it was written in the third person, I still felt connected to the characters, really enjoyed all of it!

I think I was once again a little fooled by a pretty cover. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't necessarily a bad book. It was a very quick read and I didn't have to force myself to get through it; but it unfortunately just wasn't as good as I hoped it would be.

The first half of "Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop" was very boring and nothing really happened. I did like that the main characters were running a business and it was nice to read about how the business went from a disaster to something that provides them with an income. But there were just many other things in this book I didn't really care about. I liked the dog, he was cute, and so was little Alfie (the son of the boyfriend of one of the MCs), but the romance was very weak. Nothing really happened until the last 100 pages of the book and then everything just felt extremely rushed. Furthermore, I also didn't really like Abby Clements's writing style.

Overall though, it was still a nice summer read and since I definitely enjoyed the second half more than the first half of the book, I decided to still give it three out of five stars.

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A nice quick, easy read (I did it in the journey to work and back and still had breaks to check twitter etc) that had been sitting on the to-read shelf for a while. I liked the characters and I liked the premise, although I never had any doubts about where the characters were going to end up and what the plot was going to be. Ideal for those days when you don't want to have to concentrate too hard on complicated plots or "high literature". The characters were well drawn and likeable, although I would have liked to have got to know Vivien a bit more before she died (and that's not a plot spoiler as it's on the back jacket). I'll keep an eye open for more from this author, but I won't put myself out to get them - as the reading pile is too high at the moment!

This book is just such an enticing proposition, a beautiful retro cover and promises of a lovely story as sisters Anna & Imogen take over the Brighton Ice Cream shop left to them by their grandmother.

Anna is the solid, stable sister in a relationship with divorced dad Jon. Imogen is the free spirit who is travelling around Thailand and journeys home to help take over the business. It has the setting for a great tale.

I found that what offered so much promise at times fell a little flat. Too much story, not enough book to do it in. We meet the family matriarch Vivien at the start of the book an her legacy is left behind but it's not fully explored, she's a bit player and it would have been nice to have blended her story a bit more with that of her granddaughters. In fact that seems to be the ongoing fault with this book.

Story lines are introduced then almost thrown aside as we move into the next. Anna's journey to Florence learning to make gelato should have been a book on it's own. The backstory of their father's breakdown, Anna & Imogen's stories all jumble around vying for attention and none really get it. It feels rushed and a little empty, it didn't pull enough emotion out for me.

The result was the characters remained one dimensional and a little fickle. The shop never quite the story, yet it was sold as the story. I just felt like I'd ordered Italian Gelato and ended up with cheap supermarket vanilla. It wanted to be up there with Colgan's Rosie Hopkins yet it let itself down.

It's a pleasant summer read but it won't remain with me as a favourite.

Just what I needed. A light, comforting read to start off the year.

Not bad, but not good either. I didn't have to force myself to get through it but I didn't enjoy it very much.

Light and fluffy with lots of flavour. Just a little too sweet in places.