A warm welcome to another Friday Reads blog. This week I’m featuring the uplifting romantic novel, The Best is Yet to Come from bestselling author, Jessica Redland. Isn’t the cover gorgeous? Grab yourself a cuppa, get cosy and let’s get chatting to Jessica.😊

Blurb

Emma is having a fresh start.

After a successful teaching career, an exciting new chapter awaits Emma – helping her fiancé Grayson run one of Beatrix Potter’s farms. While imagining days spent supporting Grayson with his dream, working the land and helping with the animals, Emma harvests a dream of her own – to set up an alpaca-walking business around the farm.

But working together isn’t as easy as Emma expected. Soon her dreams are in tatters and, broken-hearted, she must start over yet again.

When Oliver, Rosie and the team at Willowdale Hall welcome Emma with open arms, she can’t believe her luck. But starting a new business in a new place is a daunting prospect, especially when it comes with unexpected obstacles. With a reserved, prickly groundskeeper as a partner, rapidly changing family dynamics to contend with, and time running out to get her new career off the ground, Emma may have bitten off more than she can chew.

But even though things are not going to plan just yet, the best is yet to come for Emma, if she can just take a leap of faith and follow her heart…

Escape to the Lake District with million-copy bestseller Jessica Redland, for an uplifting story of family, friendship and love.

Link to The Best is Yet to Come on Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/4e3Iswn

Link to The Best is Yet to Come on Amazon.com: https://amzn.to/3TetziG

Link to The Best is Yet to Come on Audible UK: https://adbl.co/3Xbgkk5

Welcome to my blog, Jessica. Can you tell us a little about your novels, and what inspired you to write them.

Hi Karen, thank you for inviting me over. 😊 This week saw the release of my twenty-fourth novel – The Best is Yet to Come. It’s the third book in my Escape to the Lakes series set in the stunning Lake District National Park.

I love the Lake District. I holidayed there with my parents when I was young and have returned frequently with my own family. On a visit several years back, I felt drawn to write a series set there – kind of my love letter to the Lakes.

All the books I’d written so far were set in Yorkshire – in the fictional North Yorkshire seaside town of Whitsborough Bay inspired mainly by Scarborough (where I live) but with elements of Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay up the coast, or in the gentle rolling countryside of the Yorkshire Wolds (the Hedgehog Hollow series and the Bumblebee Barn Collection). My readers loved these settings so it was a little scary heading across the country to somewhere new, but I needn’t have worried as this has been my fastest selling series to date.

My lovely publishers, Boldwood Books, agreed to me adding the Lakes to my settings repertoire and I spent a year or so thinking about the stories I wanted to tell and the exact place they’d be set. We love Keswick and Derwent Water so I thought I’d probably set the series there, but I didn’t have a firm setting in mind until a visit in Easter 2022. We walked round the west side of the lake for the first time and stumbled across The Lingholm Estate. We couldn’t see the manor house but a pathway weaving its way over a stream and through woodland had us intrigued and the moment it opened out giving us the first glimpse of the house, I knew I’d found the inspiration for my fictional setting.

Beatrix Potter and her family holidayed at The Lingholm Estate for many years and that became my starting point for the first book – The Start of Something Wonderful. This is Autumn’s story. She draws wildlife illustrations for greetings cards but life has dealt her a few tough blows recently and she’s lost her creative mojo. When visiting her parents in Paris and spending time in the artistic district of Montmartre doesn’t reignite her spark, her long-term penpal Rosie suggests Autumn stays with her at Willowdale Hall in the Lake District. Surely treading in the footsteps of her heroine Beatrix Potter will help Autumn’s creativity to flow once more.

All of my stories explore love, friendship, family and community but in different ways. Autumn’s story is about how powerful friendship can be even when you’ve never met the person in real life.

Book 2 – A Breath of Fresh Air – is Rosie’s story, picking up where Autumn’s leaves off. Rosie runs the riding stables at Willowdale Hall but is about to experience some major change after her boss has an accident and his son returns to the home he hates.

My latest release is Emma’s story and is about a woman in her late-forties who packs in her teaching career to support her fiancé after he secures the tenancy on one of Beatrix Potter’s farms … only things don’t work out as planned and she needs to start over yet again. With the slight challenge of a herd of alpacas needing a new home!

The books can be read as standalones as each tells a complete story but the setting is the same and the previous characters reappear so the most joy comes from reading the series in order.

They all sound wonderful, Jessica. Thanks for dropping by to talk to us about your new series. I hope you sell shed loads!

Meet Jessica

Author bio

Jessica Redland is a million-copy bestselling author of emotional but uplifting stories of love, friendship, family, and community. Her Whitsborough Bay books transport readers to the stunning North Yorkshire Coast where she lives with her husband, daughter and sprocker spaniel. Her Hedgehog Hollow series, set in a hedgehog rescue centre, takes readers into the beautiful rolling countryside of the Yorkshire Wolds, as does the connected Bumblebee Barn Collection. In July 2023, she introduced her brand new Escape to the Lakes series set by Derwent Water in the Lake District National Park.

All of Jessica’s books are available in a multitude of formats: eBook, paperback, hardback, large print, and audio. Her eBooks are all available for FREE via Kindle Unlimited and various formats are available to borrow from UK libraries. Internationally, many libraries stock Jessica’s titles and she’s had books translated into Danish, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Italian, Serbian and Swedish.

Contact details

Website:           https://jessicaredlandauthor.com

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

X:                          @JessicaRedland

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

Pinterest:          https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jessicaredlandauthor

Redland’s Readers (Facebook group exclusive for readers of my books): https://www.facebook.com/groups/409519133635791

Links to author landing pages:

Amazon UK:    https://amzn.to/3tNQgh9

Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/3ne3zU9

Audible UK:     https://adbl.co/3n8jOlK