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Hello and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The 24 Hour Café by Libby Page. Thanks  so much to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the invite and to the publishers for my ARC via NetGalley. Before I share my review here’s what the book is all about:

cover175976-medium“Welcome to the café that never sleeps. Day and night Stella’s Café opens its doors for the lonely and the lost, the morning people and the night owls. It is many things to many people but most of all it is a place where life can wait at the door. A place of small kindnesses. A place where anyone can be whoever they want, where everyone is always welcome.

Meet Hannah and Mona: best friends, waitresses, dreamers. They work at Stella’s but they dream of more, of leaving the café behind and making their own way in life.

Come inside and spend twenty-four hours at Stella’s Café; a day when Hannah and Mona’s friendship will be tested, when the community will come together and when lives will be changed…”

Available from: Hive– Waterstones– Amazon – Audible UK – Google Books

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My Review

Oh this book made me cry! I don’t cry very often when I read, it’s got to be a book that really touches my heart and not just because it’s got a sad storyline.

This book really crept up on me, gently pulling at my heart as I flipped the pages on my tablet. I so enjoyed reading about Hannah and Mona and the customers at Stella’s 24 Hour Café. I loved all their stories, sometimes cringing, sometimes laughing, sometimes holding my breath as to what was going to happen next in their lives.

I loved the gentle pace of this quiet novel, that hooked me and kept me wanting more glimpses into the lives of the well drawn characters. They all felt like real people, with real lives, something that Libby Page is so good at creating. Stella’s felt so real, that I was planning my next trip to London in my head with a visit to the cafe! 😀

Towards the end, when more was revealed about the staff and customers, well that’s when the tears really came, making me reflect on my own life, about the decisions and the friendships I’ve made over the years. Sometimes we get happy endings and sometimes we don’t, but that’s life and that’s the beauty of Libby Page’s 24-Hour Café.

Highly recommended if you enjoy gentle contemporary novels, but be warned you’ll probably need a box of tissues nearby.

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About The Author

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Libby Page is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lido and The 24-Hour Café.

Before writing The Lido Libby worked as a campaigner for fairer internships, a journalist at the Guardian and a Brand Executive at a retailer and then a charity. You can find her on social media at @libbypagewrites. She also shares her swimming adventures on Instagram with her sister Alex at @theswimmingsisters.

You can follow her on Twitter on Instagram and on her website