Synopsis
‘Britain’s answer to the best Marigold Hotel’
Let the shenanigans begin at the Best Boomerville Hotel …
Jo Docherty and Hattie Contaldo have a vision – a holiday retreat in the heart of the Lake District exclusively for guests of ‘a certain age’ wishing to stimulate both mind and body with new creative experiences. One hotel refurbishment later and the Best Boomerville Hotel is open for business!
Perhaps not surprisingly Boomerville attracts more than its fair share of eccentric clientele: there’s fun-loving Sir Henry Mulberry and his brother Hugo; Lucinda Brown, an impoverished artist with more ego than talent; Andy Mack, a charming Porsche-driving James Bond lookalike, as well as Kate Simmons, a woman who made her fortune from an internet dating agency but still hasn’t found ‘the One’ herself.
With such an array of colourful individuals there’s bound to be laughs aplenty, but could there be tears and heartbreak too and will the residents get more than they bargained for at Boomerville?
Reviews
By Just Jessica
Summary:
Jo Docherty and Hattie Contaldo have a vision – a holiday retreat in the heart of the Lake District exclusively for guests of ‘a certain age’ wishing to stimulate both mind and body with new creative experiences. One hotel refurbishment later and the Best Boomerville Hotel is open for business!
Perhaps not surprisingly Boomerville attracts more than its fair share of eccentric clientele: there’s fun-loving Sir Henry Mulberry and his brother Hugo; Lucinda Brown, an impoverished artist with more ego than talent; Andy Mack, a charming Porsche-driving James Bond lookalike, as well as Kate Simmons, a woman who made her fortune from an internet dating agency but still hasn’t found ‘the One’ herself.
With such an array of colourful individuals there’s bound to be laughs aplenty, but could there be tears and heartbreak too and will the residents get more than they bargained for at Boomerville?
Opinion:
I loved reading the book! When they introduced it to me, I knew directly that I wanted to read it, i was already fan of the cover and haven’t read the summary yet.
It’s a really fun book, with romance, intriges and of course adorable characters. I must say that I got to get used of romance at a ‘certain age’. Don’t usually read those kind of books, but I really was surprised by it. An other genre discovered and thank you for that!
By Fany van Hemelen
This is a heartwarming and funny read! In earlier days the Boomerville hotel was an impressionant hotel with an other name and now it is opened again with a special reason . At one day the idea comes to give the hotel his old charm back. The manager Jo Docherty and her best friend Hattie Contaldo decide to reinvent the hotel. In an add they search for “boomers”. This are people off 50-69 year old. The hotel is looking for “boomers” they want to celebrate life. This group are often people who think life is ending at their age or they will never found love again. So Jo and Hattie will be their guardian angel. They will offer the hotel as a house to stay and will have several courses they can follow for body and mind. Kate is 50, alone and a bit lonely so she decides to take a break at the hotel. She wants to forget the death of her father and to get to know some new people. When she arrives she got to know the other residents. Lucinda is an eccentric artist who wants to give her own lesson at the hotel and is looking for new opportunities.. Hugo and Henry are guests from the beginning and quite a pair off fellows. Andy is a handsome and charming James Bond lookalike. The characters in this read are sometimes a bit special but always funny and quirky. They are well worked out and described in a lively way. The adventures at the hotel are hilarious and the book has besides romance a bit of drama.
The Best Boomerville hotel is a trip to the way love and live can be in the middle age.. The people in the book are not the youngest but their adventures are great to read. It’s nice to read a funny and dynamic book about this ages and not a dull story.
When I read you can have “a date” with the “ mystery Shaman” in his teepee or go to creative writing this sounds interesting to me. At the evenings they have nice diners or events so I think this boomers are having a good time! The Best Boomerville hotel is like chocolate: “ What a nice treat with surprising flavors”!
By Silke Gorremans
The Best Boomerville Hotel is an enjoyable read that made me chuckle a couple of times while reading.
When I started reading the book I felt like I was missing out on some important details. After some quick research I found out that The Best Boomerville hotel is a continuation from an earlier series by the same author. I think you might actually enjoy this book more if you are on to all the inside jokes and the history that some of the characters have with each other. On the other hand when you get further into the book you won’t be missing out on anything.
Something that irritated my while reading was the way Caroline James described the “boomer-generation”. I was quite surprised when I saw she was from that same generation. She actually made the guests sound much older than they actually were. Constantly talking about hip problems, bladder problems,… I will admit that de earliest baby boomers born right after the war might have such problems, but the younger boomers certainly have not. I missed some respect towards that age group. I also found that reality was lacking. As I have said lots of talk about hip problems, bladder problems etc.. but suddenly Kate is a sex goddess? Why wasn’t that put down more realistic, everybody know that women experience some problems there as well when growing older. At least I should be pleased that Andy needed to take Viagra to keep up, else it would have been really unrealistic.
But overall I quite enjoyed the story. I loved how very British it was! Of course it was predictable, like almost all books in this genre are. But it was just so much fun! And I absolutely loved the friendship between Hattie and Jo! All the little interactions between the different characters. But sometimes it felt like it was all moving a little bit too fast. Especially in the end. It felt like the author just wanted to tie all the loose ends together and give everybody a happy ending. Not caring if it made any sense or not….
An enjoyable light little read… comparable to a good candy bar. It sweet, it’s fun, but nothing notorious about it. And sometimes that is just all you need. A little guilty pleasure.
By Lie Frooninckx
Jo and her best friend Hattie have completely renovated their hotel and reopen it as “The Boomerville Hotel”. Their favourite customers are between the age of 50 and 69, are singles and need companionship. This hotel revolves around offering various workshops, ranging from pottery and clairvoyance to writer’s art. Kate is one of the first guests of the Boomerville Hotel. She put her job on hold to take care of her heavily-demented father. After his death, she falls into the “black hole”, sees the ad for Bloomerville and decides open up to new experiences for a couple of weeks. At about the same time, Andy “James Bond”, a widower and a pensioner, also arrives …. After a lot of drama and a lot of romance, we get to know Andy as a master scammer who could be exposed by his “fiancé” Kate after she became a victim of his sweet-talk …. All ends well for Kate and her friends. Wonderful story, beautifully constructed, never boring.
By Melody Weemaels
As a former hotel receptionist, i was really looking forward to Reading this one. It also has Such an adorable cover! Getting started i thought is was just one cliché piled on top of another. You have your busty, loud mouth best friend, your English rose who likes to garden and has a labrador Dog. An eccentric artist, an attractive conman and a couple of elderly brothers who kept reminding me of the muppets, you know those two on the balcony. The plot is not hard to figure out, because it follows all the traditional paths. BUT, and i write this in all caps because it is indeed a big but and you know those cannot lie, i never got bored Reading this book. There’s so much happening, so much fun to enjoy. I had some really good laughs! The level of fun in this book is so high (Thanks to hattie, oh how i loved hattie!) that those clichés are just some small side effects that you are most happy to endure. If you like some light Reading and an incredably likeable cast of characters this is the book for you.
Boekenfans reads Choc Lit 