The Floating Amsterdam Flower Shop (The Floating Shop #1)
by Annabel French
My Rating:4 stars
Genre: Women’s Fiction/ Contemporary Romance
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f
Blurb:
One fresh start. One unexpected encounter. Can love bridge the gap?When Rosie leaves behind her ordinary life in England to open a flower shop on Amsterdam’s water, she expects nothing less than a fairytale.
Max, her handsome but brooding new neighbour, prefers to keep the world at arm’s length – and living on the houseboat next door, he’s not too thrilled about the new company.
As Rosie’s business blossoms, so do her feelings for Max. But Rosie isn’t sure she’s ready for a relationship, and Max is still nursing a broken heart.
Then a rival in the flower market threatens her dreams, Rosie discovers that the most beautiful things can bloom when you learn to go with the flow – and allow someone to stand by your side.
Will Rosie and Max allow themselves to be swept away by love, or is their relationship doomed to sink before it can swim?
A fun, feel-good romance that will whisk you away to Amsterdam’s picturesque canals. Perfect for fans of Julie Caplin, Rebecca Raisin, and Cressida McLaughlin.
My Review
I recently heard of this series with floating shops and it just sounded like a fun concept, so I added this series to my wishlist. Then one day I saw that the first book was discounted in audio, so I decided to grab it in audio then and started listening to it shortly after that. The Floating Amsterdam Flower Shop is a uplifting and fun read about a British women moving to Amsterdam to start a flower shop in the floating flower market.
Rosie feels stuck in her life in London and on a whim decides to move to Amsterdam and follow her passion to start a shop at the Floating Flower Market. She hits some obstacles on the way, like her houseboat she rented not quite being as nice as advertised, getting a stall in the market not being as easy as she thought, she has a grumpy neighbor that doesn’t seem to like her and then once she gets her job in the flower market there is this rival stall owner that is trying to undermine her business. So there is plenty for Rosie to deal with. Rosie herself has a boundless optimism and determination to handle whatever comes her way. She is always looking at the bright side, which was a bit tiring at times, but I also liked reading about her and her determination to make a life for herself that she loved.
The romance was pretty sweet and has a typical grumpy-sunshine feel, which is a trope I like. It’s a pretty slow burn and I liked seeing the two grow closer. I especially liked when Max took Rosie around to some of his favorite places in Amsterdam. I liked how much faith Rosie had in Max and his painting skills and how supportive she was. While Max supported Rosie with her flower shop and was there to help her. I just didn’t like the conflict later on in the book, parts of it made sense, but I didn’t like how either of them handled it and let it drag on for so long. And Rosie was annoyed at Max for giving up on their romance so quickly, but then again she didn’t really try again either after her first attempt didn’t work out and when he tried to talk to her she wouldn’t listen. I did like the epilogue that takes place a year later and seeing how they build their lives together.
This book also has a theme of building community, with Rosie quickly finding her place at the floating flower market and making some good friends there. I liked how this turns into a real community throughout the book with the vendor owners helping each other out. And I liked how the conflict got resolved with the stall owner who tries to undermine Rosie’s business.
Later on there is a not problem that pops up for Rosie after resolving the flower stall conflict, but I didn’t like that plot line as much. It felt a bit off in places and I wasn’t quite sure if things actually worked like that and then the solution involved something that wasn’t possible at first and that just felt a bit odd.
While I live in the Netherlands I rarely read books set there, so there’s always something special about reading a book set in the Netherlands. I liked following Rosie as she explored Amsterdam and got to know the city. The scene with her eating the tompouche made me smile, they are notoriously difficult to eat, but delicious. I would’ve liked even more of those scenes and get even more of the Dutch vibes, but the focus is mostly on Rosie and her personal journey with her job and romance. I also felt like Amsterdam got a bit romanticized, but maybe as someone who lives in the Netherlands I just don’t have as positive an outlook on the city as someone who visits from abroad.
The narrator was a new to me one and the audiobook was pleasant to listen to. The narrator did the British voice for Rosie and the narration well. Sadly the Dutch pronunciations were not as good and multiple times I had trouble figuring out which name someone had as they just didn’t sound like how we pronounce them here at all. It took me a big chunk of the book to figure out the dog’s name was Zon as it is pronounced more like Zoon or Zoan. And some of the Dutch speak, of which there luckily wasn’t a lot, just sounded super rough and gruff and not at all like how Dutch sounds.
To summarize: This was a cute, uplifting and hopeful book about Rosie who moves from London to Amsterdam to start a new life there and finds a home in the city, a new romance and a close-knit community. I liked listening to this book and following Rosie’s journey, I like these type of stories about someone finding their way or discovering what they want to do. Rosie’s determination to figure things out and make a life in Amsterdam was admirable, although her positivity felt a bit over the top at times. There is a cute grumpy-sunshine romance with her neighbor and I liked seeing them grow closer and explore Amsterdam together. I liked how the plot line with a rival flower shop owner got resolved, but was less impressed with the new problem that occurs later on the book. I also didn’t like the romantic conflict and how that was handled, but the epilogue was great. The narrator was pleasant to listen to and I liked how she sounded British, but the Dutch pronunciations were not as good. I struggled to figure out some names and terms as they sounded so different from how we pronounce them. I had a good time with this book and plan to pick up the rest of the series as well.
Oh neat! You found another one set in The Netherlands and there were a few Dutch bits. I like stories about people getting new starts and the grumpy-sunshine romances are fun for me, too.
It was fun to read another book set in the Netherlands, they are hard to find, so I was delighted to discover this one. The grumpy-sunshine romance and the new start vibes were both well done. Definitely want to continue this series.