Review: The Little Teashop in Tokyo

The Little Teashop in Tokyo by Julie Caplin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fiona has won the prize of an all-expenses paid trip to Japan followed by a chance to exhibit her photographs of Japan at the Japan Centre in London. I haven't read all the previous books in this series and/or can't recall FIona in those I have read, but she is a tall blonde, quite shy, home-schooled after being bullied, and writes quite a successful blog in which people challenge her to do different things.

However, when she gets to Tokyo she discovers that her photography mentor has suffered a bereavement in the family and has been replaced by Gabriel Burnett, multi-award winning photographer, and the man who (as her mother rather dramatically describes it) ruined Fiona's life.

At first Fiona is totally overwhelmed by the foreignness of Japan, always conscious of her size she feels like a huge clumsy giant compared to all the petit Japanese woman around her, which isn't helped when she gets separated from Gabriel, swept away by a tide of people, and thoroughly lost. However, the Japanese family, three generations of women, who she is staying with help to feel more at home, sharing the intricacies of Japanese life with Fiona in their home above an authentic Tea Shop (of the title).

Gabriel is a lost man. His muse and model girlfriend abruptly left him to marry a bilionaire and he has lost his mojo. Although he has (mostly) stopped the heavy drinking and sitting around in his sweatpants he has no joie de vivre and is frankly coasting by on uninspiring commercial contracts. The last thing he wants to do is mentor Fiona and show her all the tiresome tourist traps, faking enthusiasm for her trite ideas, things that have been done a million times over.

But as Gabriel reluctantly escorts Fiona around the city he starts to find her enthusiasm infectious, not annoying. The way her every emotions shows on her face, her frank enjoyment of all things Japanese sparks some shadow of his former artistic inspiration.

You know where you are with a Julie Caplin novel, not least that you will desperately want to visit the country/city she features in her book. As an aside, what a cunning wheeze, to set each book in a different country/city so you *just have* to spend a month or two there on research LOL. Anyway, after ploughing through a pile of ARCs that were past their release date I wanted something comforting, with a charming romance, gorgeous food, and stunning landscapes and Julie Caplin delivered on all fronts.

Available on Kindle Unlimited.

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