Blog Tour: A New Life in Amsterdam by Helga Jensen

 

Sandy is feeling a bit lost in life. Her ex husband has moved back to Australia and started a new life, and now her daughter has done the same thing. Sandy tends to make herself feel better with impulse buys. Her house is stuffed with items and clothes that she just had to have but they after the initial buzz when she purchases them, they don't really bring her any joy.

When she makes the biggest online impulse buy of them all, a houseboat on a canal in Amsterdam, it is a chance for a new adventure, a new start. Amsterdam was a place that she visited years before with her friend and loved, and so it almost feels like a dream to be able to live there.  The houseboat needs a lot of work inside and out, and before long Sandy finds herself immersed in life in Amsterdam, mainly thanks to her friendly and very attractive neighbour, Abe, and the real estate agent who sold her the boat.

I did enjoy all the sights and sounds of Amsterdam, especially when Sandy's former neighbour Debbie came to visit. 

It would be totally cool to be able to stay on a houseboat in the middle of Amsterdam and be right in the city. I don't know that I would want to have to do all the renovations, although my husband does love a project so it could be right up his alley.

In some ways this book felt a bit surface level to me. Whilst her shopaholic tendencies were important in setting up the story, they were just glossed over that, almost like the problem was solved as soon as she moved into the houseboat. If there's one thing that I do know from having moved countries and states it is that the one constant is you, and so your problems do tend to go with you.

My brother in law and his family live in the Netherlands, not too far from Amsterdam, so the likelihood is quite high that I will visit there again. I am slowly collecting a few ideas for places I would like to visit when next we go there. For example, from Melissa Ashley's The Naturalist of Amsterdam I found out about Hortus Botanicus, the oldest botanical gardens in the world. If I could only choose one place to visit from this book it would be the Amsterdam Boekenmarkt - the book market.

I did also find myself going down the rabbit hole looking at felted animals. They look so cute!

Helga Jensen writes the kind of books I love to read right now. They feature older characters making a new start in amazing places. I look forward to reading more from her! Oh, and how lovely is this cover!

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews. Thanks to the publisher, Rachel's Random Resources and Netgalley for the review copy.

Rating 3.5/5

About the book

A New Life in Amsterdam

Could down-sizing her life mean up-sizing her dreams?

Since her daughter grew up and left home, Sandy has found herself filling her house with things - impulse purchases that she just has to have but that quickly lose their sheen. Why would she need an expensive set of copper pans when she has no one to cook for?

Realising that her shopping habit is out of control, she asks herself: can she de-clutter, downsize and start a new life?

She has always wanted to live on a barge, and she reasons that there is no way she would have room for random purchases on a boat. Taking the bravest decision of her life, Sandy buys and refurbishes a barge in the beautiful city of Amsterdam.

Relishing her independence, she is not looking for love, but as the nights draw in and the leaves start to fall from the trees, she finds herself drawn to cafe owner and expert hot chocolate maker Abe.

Is she willing to take a second chance on finding the one?

Purchase Link - https://geni.us/k2IyNBF

About the Author 

Helga Jensen is an internationally award-winning British/Danish best selling author and journalist. Her debut novel was a winning entry in the 2017 Montegrappa First Fiction competition at Dubai’s Emirates Literary Festival. Her debut was also a contender for the coveted 2021 Joan Hessayon Award for new writers. Helga's best selling novel, Fly me to Paris, was a finalist for the 2024 Popular Romantic Fiction Award. In 2025, her novel, A Christmas in Prague, was also a finalist for the Popular Romantic Fiction Award.



Helga holds a BA Hons in English Literature and Creative Writing, along with a Creative Writing MA from Bath Spa University. She is currently finishing a Creative Writing PhD.



Social Media Links –

Twitter - @HelgajensenF

Instagram - @Helgajensenauthor

Facebook - @Helgajensenfordeauthor

Top Ten Tuesday: Satisfying Book Series

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Satisfying Book Series (Maybe all the books were amazing or there wasn’t any second book syndrome or the final book wrapped everything up soooo perfectly.)

My list today will feature some of the more recent entries in a book series that I have read.

The Calico Cat at the Chibineko Kitchen by Yuta Takahashi - Like a lot of Japanese books this was a cute and satisfying read! This is the second book in the series. I reviewed the first book, The Chibineko Kitchen, here. 

A Winter Wedding Adventure by Leonie Mack - This is the second book in Leonie Mack's series which features adventure guides and weddings. (my review)

Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson - I only realised recently that Benjamin is an Australian author. This book, the first in the Ernest Cunningham mystery series, was a lot of fun!

The Convenience Store by the Sea by Sonoko Machida - I might be cheating a little bit with this one. There are currently four books in the series but this is the only one that has been translated into English....so far. I really hope we get to see more books in the series. (my review)

Waves of Change in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen - This is the third series that I have read by Maggie Christensen. I love her books. They are the ultimate comfort reads for me. (my review)

The Deadly Dispute by Amanda Hampson  - i have read all three books that are out so far over the last few months. The next book in the series has just been announced and I will be reading it! (my review)

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett - This is the first book in the Emily Wilde series. (my review)

Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee - This is the first book in the Dallergut Dream Department Store series which is by Korean author Miye Lee. (my review)

Beartown by Fredrik Backman - This is another first book in a trilogy and was a 5/5 read for me! (my review)

The Bookstore Family by Alice Hoffman - This is the fourth in a series of connected short stories. I still haven't read nay full length books by Alice Hoffman yet but I will because she really nails the short story format so I will be interested to see how she handles a longer story. 

What are some of your favourite series?

This week

 I'm reading

After a few quieter weeks it was a busy reading week this week!

I finished reading The Last Stop on the Winter Wonderland Express by  Rebecca Raisin which was a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas romp on a train through Europe.

I also finished listening to an audiobook this week. Somewhat unusually it was a non fiction book about writing. I Give You My Body...How I Write About Sex by Diana Gabaldon was mentioned at the reader retreat I attended earlier this year, purely because of some of the names she lists for the male appendage which was mentioned as being particularly humourous. The book was narrated by Herself (which is what dedicated DG fans call her) but it also featured a lot of excerpts from the audiobooks of the series. The two things I took away from it were that Diana Gabaldon talks really fast, and it also reminded me how much I loved this series back in the day. I still haven't read the last book because the last couple have been a bit like hard work to get through. I haven't yet started my next audiobook. Not sure what I am going to choose. 

I started reading A New Life in Amsterdam by Helga Jenssen. I will have the review for that one later this week. 

I also started The Oyster Catcher by Jo Thomas. I have read a few of Jo Thomas' books over the year and really enjoyed them all, so this is me now starting to go back through her backlist.

A few months ago now, I went to an author event which featured Jodi McAlister who had just launched An Academic Affair. This weekend was our read on a theme book club meeting and the theme for this time was Romance. Now, I am never going to be short of a read for this theme, but I decided that this book was going to be the one that I specifically chose to read. And I loved it!

I also talked about The Last Love Note by Emma Grey.

Here are just some of the books that other members read this month!

We agreed that for next month is a freebie. Not sure if that is going to make it harder or easier to choose which book to talk about. 

I did go to a book launch this week. Steph Vizard's new book A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances was launched at a local bookstore, and it was standing room only there were so many people there! It was a good night, and I got to see a few other bloggers, bookstagrammers and authors that I am getting to know as we all turn up at the same events from time to time. I am looking forward to reading the book. 

Books let our imaginations travel where our feet cannot - Nora Nguyen

Here's where I travelled through books in September

Australia

Tasmania - An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister

Western Australia - Daughter of Batavia by Stefanie Koens

Asia

Japan - The Calico Cat at the Chibineko Kitchen by Yuta Takahashi, The Phone Box at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina

Europe

France - A French Inheritance by Jennifer Bohnet

Ireland - Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Italy - The Lost Garden by Angela Petch, Daughter of Genoa by Angela Petch

UK - Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop by Jessica Redland, The Life She Could Have Lived by Laura Pearson

US 

Seattle - The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie by Rachel Linden

I also share my favourite reads for the month on Bookstagram and here. I read 11 books in September which is down a bit from the last couple of months but not really surprising. An Academic Affair was a 5 star read and the others shown were both 4.5 star reads! 

I'm watching

After book club on Saturday three of us went and sat at a cafe near the beach and just watched the world go by before we went to see Napoli - New York as part of the Italian Film Festival. It was a good movie. It's the story of two orphans from Napoli who stow away on a boat to get to America and all the things that happen to them along the way. I actually like it a lot. It was a big melodramatic but ti was entertaining.

Life

We booked our next year's holiday and I am so excited! However, my attention is now turned to our next holiday which is in a couple of weeks. Better start getting organised. 

Max

Because my son was away at the same time we were, we had to get a petsitter in for Max. I think he was okay with it! She shared a lot of photos with us over the three days we were away.


Posts from the last week



Top Ten Tuesday: It's a Flower!
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - October links

In My Kitchen - September

Six Degrees of Separation - I Want Everything to Dear Mrs Bird





I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date, Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz and the Good Book and a Cup of Tea link up hosted at Boondock Ramblings

Six Degrees of Separation: I Want Everything to Dear Mrs Bird

 Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz and A Good Book and a Cup of Tea hosted at Boondock Ramblings.

This month the starting point in Dominic Amerena’s novel about authors and publishing, I Want Everything. I must confess I found this book a bit difficult to find links from, which isn't normal for me. I tried a couple of different option but couldn't make them work through to the end. This was my third attempt. 

I love reading books set in places that I know. For example, I Want Everything is set in Melbourne and so I am choosing the last book I read set in Melbourne which is The Butterfly Women by Madeleine Cleary (my review). This book tells the story of women living in goldrush Melbourne and working in a fancy brothel.

Another book with a goldrush connection which I read years ago was Mr Chen's Emporium by Deborah O'Brien. (my review) 

There aren't that many books with the word emporium in the title. I have read a number of books by Jojo Moyes but haven't yet read The Peacock Emporium, despite having owned it for years.

I have read and loved The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell

It feels as though I end up with bird related books pretty regularly so was looking through my list of books read for one that I haven't used before too many times which lead me to Liar Bird by Lisa Walker

And sticking to the bird theme I am finishing the chain with Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce, which is a book I currently have out of the library.

Using that library link I could now go in multiple directions but that's it for this month!

Next month, the starting point is We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson


Will you be joining us?

In My Kitchen - September

Welcome to the first Saturday of the month where I share everything I have made over the previous month.I started working again at the beginning of last month and apparently it took away all my baking inspiration and energy, but if you invite people around then you have to do something right!

We did have a lovely lunch in the Yarra Valley with our kids. It was the first time my husband has had his kids all in the same place at the same time in about 3 years so we went out to a nice winery restaurant there, and then we went to the chocolaterie. I bought a couple of things from the Yarra Valley chocolaterie but forgot to take a picture. I might need to take another drive to get some more of their mint chocolate. It was so good.

We did bring home one of their brownie kits. It comes with all the dry ingredients as well as the baking tray. The intention was to make it while our daughter was staying with us but it didn't happen. Maybe I should do that tomorrow night. I do have a much made brownie recipe that I usually make from scratch so it will be interesting to see how this one compares.

Before she went back to the UK we did have an afternoon get together for family friends so had around 12 people here for two different types of soup and bread (pumpkin and pea and ham). We did make curried sausage rolls (which I have previously posted about here) and I made the white chocolate cheesecake which has been a go to dessert for years. I originally shared the recipe on my blog back in 2009 but I think I was making it for a couple of years before then so it is a long term favourite

We went away last weekend to Port Macquarie which is on the mid North coast of New South Wales. We had an amazing weekend. It is a beautiful area with great beaches, lots of big rivers, mountains and more!

We did go to a lovely little cafe in a place called Dunbogan where you can feed the fish. On Saturday we went to visit the Big Banana which was about an hour and a half away. It's in a town called Coffs Harbour. 

The highlight was finding out that there was a Dutch food place so we stopped there for lunch and had a sharing platter which included Bitterballen, two different types of croquettes and frikandellen served with fries and some delicious sauces.

There is also a miniature Dutch village out the back, which Robert said is a very Dutch thing! We were highly amused by seeing the quite large goanna climbing all over one of the houses. The tiny inhabitants must have been terrified!

We also bought some packs of Nasi Goreng Spice mix from the grocery store so that will keep us going for a bit longer. Hopefully we will be able to get some more packs next year.

On Saturday night we went to a typical country pub where I had a gigantic chicken schnitzel with a surf  topping (basically garlic prawns and sauce). It's not a normal topping option for schnitzel but it was delicious

Speaking of Dutch food, we were very excited that we were able to get hold of some Chocomel which is Dutch chocolate milk. It makes the most delicious hot chocolate and we fell in love with it when we were in The Netherlands a few years ago. You can't normally get it but we were lucky that Aldi had it for a couple of weeks.

52 Recipes Challenge

Here are the new recipes we tried this month.

Egg Curry  - So good, but we can only have it when my son isn't home as he doesn't like eggs.

Pumpkin Soup - we have made this heaps of times before but it was the first time we tried this particular recipe from the Recipetin Eats book.

Weekend Cooking posts from the last month

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Afternoon Tea Diaries: Ritz Carlton Melbourne

Making Scones 

The Whisky Widow by Karen Brooks

Weekly meals

Saturday -  Away
Sunday - Away
Monday - Steak egg and chips
Tuesday - Coconut Prawn Curry
Wednesday - Pizza
Thursday - Pizza
Friday - Takeaway

I am sharing this post with In My Kitchen hosted at Sherry's Pickings.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - October links

 

Thank you to everyone who contributed a review in September for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Currently there are more than 50 links! I will be back in the next week or so with all the statistics for the month. 

I am looking forward to reading your reviews throughout the rest of the year! I am sure there is going to be a lot of great historical fiction discovered and shared with fellow HF lovers over the course of this year!

If you haven't already signed up, it's not too late! The sign up post is here.

Just to recap what participants need to know. At the beginning of each month I will put up a post which will have a Mr Linky embedded into it for you to add your link.

Please remember...

• add the link(s) of your review(s) including your name and book title to the Mister Linky we’ll be adding to our monthly post (please, do not add your blog link, but the correct address that will guide us directly to your review). 
• it doesn't matter where you review - Bookstagram, Goodreads etc as long as you share a direct link to your review.
• any kind of historical fiction is accepted (fantasy, young adult, graphic novels...)
• if you have time, have a look some of the other links that are present. You never know when you will discover new blogs or books!

You can also join the challenge group on Facebook which you can find here and don't forget to use the #histficreadingchallenge hashtag on the socials.

Let the reading begin!!

Top Ten Tuesday: It's a flower!

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Book Covers that Give off Fall Vibes (Or, if you’re not a cover person, share the books in general that feel like Fall.). It is Spring here, so I am choosing to focus on gardens and flowers this week. 

The Lucky Sisters by Rachael Johns - This book isn't even out yet but how could I not include it in a post about flowers on covers!

The Lost Garden by Angela Petch - The title says it all really. This garden is found again in WWII Italy. (my review)

Once Upon  a Thyme by Jane Lovering - This book is set in a herb garden (my review)

The Whisky Widow by Karen Brooks - I love the thistles on the cover of this book (my review)

The Woman Who Got Her Spark Back by Fiona Gibson - The main character of this book runs a plant hospital (my review)

A Secret Garden in Paris by Sophie Beaumont - This books takes it's characters on a walking tour of the gardens of Paris. (my review)

Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin - This books features a cemetery caretaker who takes care of the garden and the graves (my review)

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett - I love the cover on this book! (my review)

The Magic of Provence by Alison Roberts - I like the way the flowers frame the arch on this cover. I am thinking about doing a TTT all about books with arches on the cover. (my review)

The Secrets of the Huon Wren by Claire van Ryn - This cover is so pretty with all the flowers cascading down the cover. (my review)

Have you read any of these books?