I don’t know why this book wasn’t an easy read
for me. I felt since I had promised to read and review it that I should finish
it so I kept reading. I wondered if it
were because I had a day or two when I wasn’t feeling so well that I had put
the book down, and maybe I hadn’t paid enough attention when reading the
beginning but as I kept reading I don’t think this was the case. I guess this book just wasn’t for me. It was about five friends in their sixties,
who decide to live together on a cocoa farm in Fiji, where one of the friends
already lives and invites them to join her.
They leave their homes and move in there. They decide to start a chocolate business,
and it’s not so much about the chocolate business but about the things they
discover about themselves and each other while spending all of their time
together. There were some surprises for
me, I guess that was what helped me to keep reading. I was kind of interested in the chocolate
business but that isn’t as much described as the relationship between the
friends, both past and present is discovered.
There was enough to keep me reading but I think I may have stopped
reading it if I hadn’t promised the review.
I’m not the most fabulous writer, I can’t break down what went wrong
with the book for me, for the writer. Maybe I should stick to romance novels…… My apologies to the author.
The e-book was given in exchange for an honest
review from Net Galley:
Description as found
on Net Galley:
A novel of five lifelong
friends who, in their sixties, decide to live together on a cocoa farm in Fiji,
where they not only start a chocolate business but strengthen their friendships
and rediscover themselves.
"I've planted my feet on Fijian earth and I intend to stay here until the last sunset. Why don't you join me? Leave behind everything that didn't work out!"
When Sina, Maya, Ingrid, and Lisbeth each receive a letter in the mail posing the same question, the answer is obvious. Their old high school friend Kat—Kat the adventurer, Kat who spread her wings and took off as soon as they graduated—has extended the invitation of a lifetime: Come live with me on my cocoa farm in Fiji. Come spend the days eating chocolate and gabbing like teenagers once again, free from men, worries, and cold. Come grow old in paradise, together, as sisters. Who could say no?
Now in their sixties, the friends have all but resigned themselves to the cards they've been dealt. There's Sina, a single mom with financial woes; gentle Maya who feels the world slipping away from her; Ingrid, the perennial loner; Lisbeth, a woman with a seemingly picture-perfect life; and then Kat, who is recently widowed. As they adjust to their new lives together, the friends are watched over by Ateca, Kat's longtime housekeeper, who oftentimes knows the women better than they know themselves and recognizes them for what they are: like "a necklace made of shells: from the same beach but all of them different." Surrounded by an azure-blue ocean, cocoa trees, and a local culture that is fascinatingly, joyfully alien, the friends find a new purpose in starting a business making chocolate: bittersweet, succulent pieces of happiness.
A story of love, hope, and chocolate, PIECES OF HAPPINESS will reaffirm your faith in friendship, second chances, and the importance of indulging one's sweet tooth.
"I've planted my feet on Fijian earth and I intend to stay here until the last sunset. Why don't you join me? Leave behind everything that didn't work out!"
When Sina, Maya, Ingrid, and Lisbeth each receive a letter in the mail posing the same question, the answer is obvious. Their old high school friend Kat—Kat the adventurer, Kat who spread her wings and took off as soon as they graduated—has extended the invitation of a lifetime: Come live with me on my cocoa farm in Fiji. Come spend the days eating chocolate and gabbing like teenagers once again, free from men, worries, and cold. Come grow old in paradise, together, as sisters. Who could say no?
Now in their sixties, the friends have all but resigned themselves to the cards they've been dealt. There's Sina, a single mom with financial woes; gentle Maya who feels the world slipping away from her; Ingrid, the perennial loner; Lisbeth, a woman with a seemingly picture-perfect life; and then Kat, who is recently widowed. As they adjust to their new lives together, the friends are watched over by Ateca, Kat's longtime housekeeper, who oftentimes knows the women better than they know themselves and recognizes them for what they are: like "a necklace made of shells: from the same beach but all of them different." Surrounded by an azure-blue ocean, cocoa trees, and a local culture that is fascinatingly, joyfully alien, the friends find a new purpose in starting a business making chocolate: bittersweet, succulent pieces of happiness.
A story of love, hope, and chocolate, PIECES OF HAPPINESS will reaffirm your faith in friendship, second chances, and the importance of indulging one's sweet tooth.
