Many thanks to Tracy Fenton for inviting me to take part in the blog tour for ‘Bonnie and Stan’ by Anna Stuart – I am excited to be sharing my review today as part of the blog tour. Thank you to Trapeze also, for the ARC. Here is my review:
After 50 years together Stan still adores his wife… so why is he dating again?
Bonnie and Stan are soulmates. They met during the Swinging Sixties, to the soundtrack of The Beatles and the Merseybeat scene. Now they’ve grown up and grown old together, had children and grandchildren. They are finally building their dream home, when disaster strikes.
Stan is running out of time, and can’t bear the thought of leaving Bonnie alone. Alongside his teenage granddaughter Greya, he forms a plan to find Bonnie a new love of her life. And she must never find out…
What does TWG think?
What a soundtrack this book has!!! I wasn’t born in the swinging sixties, yet I know all of the songs mentioned in this book, AND I was able to do a little sing song whilst reading it!
If you were to open a dictionary and look up the word ‘love’, I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw the definition as being ‘Bonnie and Stan’. No matter what those two lovebirds went through, their love for each other seemed to get stronger and stronger with each passing day.
In this story, we get to follow Bonnie and Stan’s life in the present, as well as in the early sixties when their paths originally crossed. A time where the Beatles were huge, and fashion was a statement nobody dare forget even now. Even though many years have passed, Bonnie is still by Stan’s side, and visa versa, but the thing is, due to the fact that in the parts of the book where the sixties are mentioned and Stan was part of a band, they didn’t use their real names. Bonnie wasn’t always by Stan’s side, though when Bonnie needed it the most, Stan rushed to hers with no questions asked. Can you work out which band member Stan was?
You really do need to believe in romance to appreciate every iota of this storyline, something which I have never been good at. That said, I totally appreciated the emotion behind the romance and the hurdles the couple had to jump over to reach the here and now.
Poor Bonnie and Stan have another massive hurdle to get through, one which will no doubt make your heart break due to the unfairness of it all. Like I said, I’m not a romantic sort, yet even my heart decided to smash. Life can be so, so unfair.
Anna Stuart took me on a journey I won’t forget in a hurry. A journey which told the story of two characters who were written with incredible depth and warmth. I adored the authors powerful storytelling, and I feel that she captured the essence of Bonnie and Stan’s love for each other, absolutely beautifully. Such a poignant, tender, loving novel with an absolutely BELTER of a soundtrack to boot.
The Writing Garnet 