Jera's Jamboree

Hubble Bubble starts with Holly round best friend Megan’s. Megan has split from boyfriend Tom. Rescuing an old half eaten takeaway wrapped in newspaper from the fridge (a meal she’d shared with him) Megan sees an advert on the newspaper for women to form a group.

Leaving Megan, Hol meets brother Nicholas in a pub and is introduced to journalist, Kai. She looks after Nicholas. We find out that Holly is a location scout and Kai has a gothic property on the edge of the woods. Holly has no time for men and she’s suspicious of Kai.

Vivienne is the one who advertised for ‘women interested in forming a group to practise a new branch of the magical arts.’ Holly’s appearance at the first meeting is highly amusing. Excellent characterisations of the group (and ALL the characters!) All of them want fulfilment. Their spell making is humorous although underlying this is a sinister aspect too (not the magic but the characters who intrude).

There’s intrigue about Kai – I wanted to know who he was writing the letters to! The attraction between Hol and Kai has barriers which they’ve put up themselves, in fact they are a mirror-image of each other underneath the façade.

All the characters are wonderful. Those I haven’t mentioned – Cerys, Aiden, Vivienne, Isobel, Eve, the bikers … each bring something to the story, alongside our main characters. This gives an added depth.

The locations and the weather are perfect for the building tension and the suspense.

Underlying the humour and the spells is the love story of two people, wearing their masks so they can’t be hurt. The intimacy is electrifying and even more so because of the slow build up! There’s intrigue by a group of men and their threatening behaviour … and intrigue with their connection to Kai; Intrigue with Kai’s letters; Holly’s brother Nicholas and his needs; Cerys and her pregnancy; the needs of the group of women.

As well as the plot and the characters, Lovering’s style of writing is brilliant. I loved this on page 154 describing the gale force winds:

“It was too busy working the tree tops, forcing the fingertips of branches to rake the sky and all the while sounding like an incoming tide.”

I could really ‘feel’ Lovering’s writing.

Don’t be fooled by the title or the blurb. This is a multi-layered story that will engage all your emotions and cause you to think about the characters, long after the story has ended.

I would like to thank the publishers for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.