I am absolutely thrilled to be sharing my review of this beautiful book with you all today! 🙂

Happy Publication Day, Claire Huston! 🙂

Art & Soul

Claire Huston

(Written 08/04/2020)

What an absolute joy to read this book was! I have absolutely LOVED it!

Becky Watson is an inspiring and instantly likeable character. A single mother to a toddler, juggling motherhood with running her own business, she is certainly not shy of hard work. Her business is quite unique, as she is a life-fixer. I’ve never known a life-fixer, but it sounds like an interesting and challenging job. Her clients hire her for whatever they need to improve their lives and her new client certainly seems to be stuck in a rut with no seemingly easy way to escape. She is obviously going to have her work cut out with this one.

Charlie Handren is an artist. A struggling artist who has lost his muse. His marriage has failed which hasn’t helped his creative juices to flow, for quite some time. Six years in fact. His daughter talked him in to giving Becky a call, but he’s not at all convinced and they struggle to hit it off to begin with. Becky does wonder if she can be any kind of help to him at all. Eventually, between herself and his daughter, Phoebe, they get him to agree to give her ideas a try and they put Becky’s plans in action. And what an ambitious plan it is! I found the whole thing quite exciting.

Becky is quite bossy to be honest, but she obviously knows her stuff. I admired her confidence. I enjoyed the friendship that quickly builds between Becky, Charlie and Phoebe, although it isn’t without it’s ups and downs. What friendship is!?

I didn’t warm to Rachel, at all, and did wonder what Charlie saw in her, past her looks. I was really, really, really hoping he would direct his affections towards Becky instead. The chemistry between them is difficult to ignore. You know what it’s like when you’re reading a book with two characters who are obviously made for each other but can’t seem to see it for themselves so you really, really want to jump in to the story and bang their heads together to make them see sense? Well, yeah, this is one such story!

I felt completely invested in these characters and totally immersed in their story. I was routing for them both to find true love and happiness, and I thoroughly enjoyed the rollercoaster of emotions I experienced along the way.

This isn’t your average romance. It’s a beautifully written novel full of fascinating characters you will fall in love with.

Virgil is a fabulous character! Loved him!

There is also lots of cake and who doesn’t love cake!?

Art and Soul really does have it all. I can’t imagine anyone not loving it from the first page to the last, as I did. It left me with a huge satisfied smile on my face.

Many thanks to Claire Huston for my beautiful paperback copy. I am truly thankful to have had the pleasure of reading it prior to publication.

OUT NOW!

About the author…..

Claire Huston lives in Warwickshire with her husband and two children. Art and Soul is her first novel.

A keen amateur baker, she enjoys making cakes, biscuits and brownies almost as much as eating them. You can find recipes for all the cakes mentioned in Art and Soul at http://www.clairehuston.co.uk along with over 100 other recipes. This is also where she talks about and reviews books.

As well as her website, you can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Goodreads: linktr.ee/clairehuston_author