#BlogTour! #Review – The Forgotten Guide to Happiness by Sophie Jenkins (@sophiejenkinsuk) @AvonBooksUK

Evening TWGers! Hope you have all been enjoying the sunshine today! In keeping with the sunshine and happy things, I have the pleasure of hosting debut author, Sophie Jenkins, and her debut novel ‘The Forgotten Guide to Happiness’! Huge thanks, as always, to Avon Books for the blog tour invite and the ARC of the book. Here is my review:

You can lose your memory, but you never forget how to love…

Lana Green has a talent for pushing people away. As a writer, she’s perfectly happy to be left alone with her books. But when she meets Jack Buchanan and Nancy Ellis Hall, Lana’s solitary life will change for ever.

Nancy has dementia, and social services believe this makes her vulnerable. But Lana can see the funny, brilliant woman underneath the illness.

As Lana and Jack struggle to keep Nancy out of a care home, Lana starts to question everything she ever thought mattered.

Because what’s the point in stories, if there is no one to share them with?

What does TWG think?

What a nifty little book this is! If you’re someone who has been pushing back getting started on their first book (like me), or someone who is struggling with their subsequent novels and need a little bit of a pick me up, then I reckon this book will knock the nail on the head for you. However, you don’t need to be in the midst of authory stuff to enjoy reading ‘The Forgotten Guide to Happiness’.

Lana Green seemed happy enough in her own little bubble, cranking out the words for her novel like nobodies business. Important word usage there; SEEMED. If Lana were to glance at her life as a shell without over thinking anything, she would probably say that she is the happiest she has ever been, had everything she wanted in life, and so on. But, Lana Green hadn’t met Nancy Ellis Hall – a lady who would end up changing Lana’s mindset on life. The annoying thing was – Lana had to get a bit stuck in the mud before she met the lady who would leave a mark. No pun intended (it’ll make sense if you read the book.)

Nancy is a breath of fresh air, a ray of sunshine, and is no doubt a lady who everyone will say their grandmothers are like. The medical profession say that Nancy has dementia, whereas the social services say that Nancy is vulnerable. What do I think? Well, I think that Nancy is a lady who just wants to live out the rest of her days feeling happy before she loses the ability to feel anything.

My positive opinion of Lana was lacking at first, as I found her to be a whiny woman who hadn’t got her own way. It was like she was adamant about throwing her teddy out of the pram without taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. I know that heart-break comes in all different shapes and sizes, but seriously, ensuring that you have a roof over your head and food in your belly, is far more important than wondering whether your ex is getting his rocks off with a Swedish masseuse, right?!

Once Nancy and Jack appeared on the scene, Lana’s personality started to shine brighter and my opinion of her began to change for the better. Gone was the ‘woe is me’ outlook, instead being taken over by a ‘girls, just wanna have fuuuuuun’ attitude. There was no more of taking the wrong things seriously and wondering why she had found herself stuck in deep cow pats because of it. I suppose you could say that she, oh I don’t know, grew up? DOn’t get me wrong, I know that we all look at things in life in completely different ways as opposed to Mrs Jones down on Baker Street, but that wasn’t my issue with Lana. It was the way she acted as though she was the only person in the world to ever get hurt. You live and you learn though, don’t you.

‘The Forgotten Guide to Happiness’ is an absolute gem of a read, despite my ever changing opinion of Lana. I loved what Jack brought to the story with his definition of what a ‘hero’ should look like, and I adored the sass which Nancy contributed to the storyline – reader, I laughed out loud many times where Nancy was concerned!

Sophie Jenkins’ novel really was an enchanting, thought-provoking read which left me with a massive smile on my face. The storyline wasn’t too deep to make you feel as though you had to really think about the storyline, it was just right.

‘The Forgotten Guide to Happiness’ may have forgotten it’s guide, but its storyline and memorable characters aren’t something I am going to be forgetting anytime soon. If you’re wanting a book to cosy up with, then grab a cuppa tea and a bar of chocolate because this one is most definitely a book for you.

‘The Forgotten Guide to Happiness’ can be bought now in e-book from Amazon, with the paperback following on the 9th August.