Love Letters On Hazel Lane (The Little Board Game Café Book Two) by Jennifer Page

Love Letters on Hazel Lane (The Little Board Game Café Book Two) by Jennifer Page.

Published 4th January by Aria, Head of Zeus.

From the cover of the book:

Scrabble fan Jo always seems to pick the wrong guys. Now she's moved to the Yorkshire village of Hebbleswick, and decided to give dating one last chance. This time, there's a catch: she will only date men whose names would score highly in her beloved word game.

After Tarquin (16 points) proves just as disappointing as the rest, she meets low-scoring local doctor Ras (3 points). Her rules mean she can't date him – but when he asks her to organise a Scrabble festival with him, she can't say no.

As the event draws nearer and Jo and Ras grow closer, will Jo ignore her rule and let true love blossom over the triple letter scores?

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Following the break-up of her marriage to a controlling husband, Jo moves to the quaint Yorkshire village of Hebbleswick, for a fresh start. It is hard being the new person in town, and Jo is feeling lonely - especially since her best friend Gemma moved away, and Leona, the new girl at Pop! Productions where Jo works, seems to have frozen her out of the get togethers she used to be invited to.

With her confidence at an all time low, Jo decides it is time to get back out there, and gives internet dating a go to find her perfect man. Sadly, relying on misleading bios and blurry photos does not seem to be giving her the results she was looking for. All Jo really wants is someone kind and caring who loves her favourite board game, Scrabble, just as much as she does... and this gives her an idea. She will pick her prospective partner on the basis of how high their names would score in Scrabble! What could go wrong?

However, when the promising scoring Tarquin (16 points) proves a disaster, but local doctor Ras (only 3 points) ticks all her boxes, Jo is forced to rethink her strategy - especially as Ras even runs a local Scrabble club. Friendship blooms between Ras and Jo, and soon they are working together on a Hebbleswick Scrabble festival, but can they ever become more than friends?

In this endearing follow-up to her debut rom-com, The Little Board Game Cafe, Jennifer Page returns to her beloved world of board games - this time focusing on that stalwart of many a family get-together in our household, good old Scrabble. Love Letters on Hazel Lane is also full of many of the other themes Page is so good at exploring: love, loss, loneliness, friendship, family, and community - and she ups the emotional ante here by introducing a protagonist who is recovering from a controlling relationship that has knocked the stuffing right out of her too.

Jo begins this story in a bad place, stuck in a job with a toxic environment, and finding that her tentative steps towards trusting another man only bring her more heartache. But all is not lost, because Page surrounds her with a glorious set of characters who can really help her on the way to healing and happiness - after the required number of twists, turns, and bumps in the road, of course. For readers of Page's previous book, The Little Board Game Cafe, many of these characters will be familiar faces, but this is a standalone story which can be enjoyed on its own - I do recommend going back and reading the first book as well though, for the ultimate heart-warming hit, as it is gorgeous.

The way Jo grows in confidence in these pages, facing her demons, and blossoming into the person she was always meant to be, made this story for me. Page weaves some serious subjects into her journey, which she handles with sensitivity, and everything dovetails nicely into the gentle romance that plays out between Jo and Ras. I thoroughly enjoyed how much Page waves the flag for community enterprises in helping those experiencing loneliness too - something that really comes across as being close to her own heart.

This was a joy to read, confirming Page's ability to write a comforting story full of love, romance, and hope - with an entertaining side-order of board game fever. I loved it. Roll on book three!

Love Letters on Hazel Lane is available to buy now in paperback and ebook.

Thank you to Aria for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Jennifer Page lives near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire with her husband Hermi and his very – no, make that extremely – large collection of board games. Her debut novel, The Little Board Game Cafe published on 13th April 2023. Jennifer writes light-hearted, cosy romantic fiction which was initially inspired by her own dating adventures. Before she met Hermi, she was single for 13 years and had pretty much given up on meeting The One.

When she isn’t writing, Jennifer can usually be found playing board games; since she met Hermi, she’s become even more obsessed with them than he is! She also loves cooking (though she’d never claim to be any good at it!), caravan holidays and walking in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside.