It’s time for another Friday Reads post and this week my featured book is Second Chances at the Board Game Café by Jennifer Page – the next warm and uplifting instalment in The Little Board Game Cafe series. So grab yourself a cuppa, get cosy, and let’s find out a bit more about the book and get chatting to Jennifer.

Blurb

In the cosy Yorkshire village of Hebbleswick, single mum Taylor dreams of a fashion design career, but she spends her days fixing zips, hemming skirts and worrying about her son, Max. At the local board game cafe, railway enthusiast Harry, still recovering from a painful breakup, dreams of fatherhood. When Taylor and Harry cross paths, sparks fly, but Harry’s confidence issues and Taylor’s concerns for Max threaten their budding romance.

Can they find a second chance at love where they least expect it?

Buy Link: Amazon

Welcome to my blog, Jennifer. Your book sounds fanttastic. Can you tell us what inspired you to write it?

Thanks, Karen. Delighted to be here. Second Chances at the Board Game Café happened because two ideas collided.

My first two novels – The Little Board Game Café and Love Letters on Hazel Lane – featured two custom made pinafore dresses. One was made out of Scrabble-printed fabric and the other had meeples on it. (Meeples, in case you don’t know, are little people-shaped board game pieces that are used in games like Carcassonne).

I found myself wondering who had made these dresses. One of the dresses ends up in a charity shop window – that’s the opening of Love Letters – and I thought about what it might feel like if you’ve toiled away on something bespoke for a customer and then see it’s been given away. That’s how Second Chances begins; Taylor the dressmaker sees one of the dresses in the window of the hospice shop, and is gutted that the client hadn’t wanted it.

Then I was thinking about a particular group of board game players who appeared as very minor characters in The Little Board Game Café. Emily, the owner of the café, nicknamed them the  Trainspotters – with fondness, not derision – as they always played train games like Ticket to Ride and Age of Steam. Might one of the Trainspotters bump into Taylor and fall head over heels?

I can sew, but don’t know much about it. I was writing this book last autumn, and at the time, we’d just taken on an eight week old puppy for the charity Guide Dogs. In the early mornings, when he wanted to sleep on my knee, I passed the time watching The Great British Sewing Bee as research for the book, so that features quite a bit as well. I decided my trainspotter Harry might look a bit like Patrick Grant.

And then I remembered watching The Railway Children as a child and loving it, so I decided it should be Taylor’s favourite film. Elements of the film have crept into the book too, and inspired a big part of the plot.

A final influence came from our local Oxfam shop in Hebden Bridge who ran an upcycled fashion show last September. Lots of volunteers came together over the summer and upcycled secondhand garments. I went to some of their sewing evenings. That’s what inspired me to have Taylor organise a similar event in the fictional town of Hebbleswick.  The whole evening was amazing – not only were there amazing creations on display, but a very inspiring speaker who told us about the whole issue of fast fashion and the billions of tons of clothing that are discarded each year.

I did lots of research online into upcycling clothes and found some amazing designs. It was great fun describing all the garments that Taylor creates in the book. I think that was my favourite part to write and I really want to try my hand at upcycling myself. 

All of those different elements somehow came together and became Second Chances at the Board Game Café, and along the way, I became a big fan of the Great British Sewing Bee.

Meet Jennifer

Jennifer Page wrote her first novel – a book about ponies – when she was eight. These days she prefers to write romance. When she isn’t writing, Jennifer can usually be found playing board games which are the inspiration for her first novel. She has worked as a television producer, a music teacher and has even run a children’s opera company. She now lives near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire with her husband, his large collection of games and guide dog puppy Pete.

Contact Links

https://jenniferpage.co.uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferPagewrites/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferpagewrites/

Website: https://jenniferpage.co.uk

Thanks so much for dropping by to tell us about your new book, Jennifer. I hope it flies! 😊

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