Retreat to the Spanish Sun

By Jo Thomas

What it’s about?

Eliza has a full house! When her three children grew up and moved out, she downsized to a smaller property… but now they’re all back. Every room in the house is taken and Eliza finds herself sharing her bed with her eldest daughter and her daughter’s pug. Combined with the online course she’s trying to finish, plus her job to fit in, there just isn’t the peace and quiet that Eliza needs.

So when an ad pops up on her laptop saying ‘house-sitters wanted’, Eliza can’t resist the chance to escape. She ends up moving to a rural finca in southern Spain, looking after the owner’s Iberico pigs, learning about secret gastronomic societies… and finding a new zest for life and love along the way.

What I think:

This is such perfect feel good summer reading!

Eliza is stuck in a rut. Her children are adults and this was supposed to be her chance to pursue her dreams. Instead she is struggling with inspiration for her college essay and, having flown the nest, her children have returned and her flat is over-crowded.

She loves her children and loves taking care of people, but being a mother is all she has.

On a whim she takes a job house sitting in rural Spain. The peace and quiet will mean she can complete her college work and have some much needed time to herself.

In Spain she quickly finds herself making friends with the local ex-pat community – a group of Brits who moved to Spain searching for a dream of ther own, with varying degrees of success. They welcome Eliza with open arms and she quickly makes friends.

When farm hand Pedro leaves and she finds herself in charge of a precious herd of piglets, Eliza begins to understand the beauty of farming, good food and local produce.

There’s a bit of intrigue and a bit of romance, drama and humour. This is such a readable book. I loved Eliza from page one and really enjoyed her story. The writer has really created a whole town that you can completely visualise. And Bruno the pig is really quite wonderful!

There is such a love of good food in this book that you will definitely want to head off for tapas in the sunshine.

A perfect summer read.

About the author:

Jo Thomas worked for many years as a reporter and producer, including time at Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and Radio 2’s The Steve Wright Show.

Jo’s debut novel, The Oyster Catcher, was a runaway bestseller and won both the RNA Joan Hessayon Award and the Festival of Romance Best eBook Award. Her recent book Escape to the French Farmhouse was a #1 bestselling eBook and in every one of her novels Jo loves to explore new countries and discover the food produced there, both of which she thoroughly enjoys researching. Jo lives in Pembrokeshire with her husband and three children, where cooking and gathering around the kitchen table are a hugely important and fun part of their family life.

Thank you to Random Things Tours for inviting me to be a part of this glorious blog tour.