Such an enjoyable read from Anstey Harris.

Redundancy forces Cate and her son Leo to move out of London to her late Husbands’ family home, which is also ‘Hatters Museum of the Wide Wide World’ filled with wonderful artefacts collected by his Grandfather many years ago.

At first they are met with a frosty reception from Miss Buchan, the elderly housekeeper. But as they get to know her Cate and Leo learn that Miss Buchan cares very much about the museum and keeping it open for future generations to enjoy and appreciate.

Committed to helping keep Hatters open, Cate and Leo embark on a journey where they fall in love their wonderful new environment and make new friendships along the way.

It’s not all plain sailing and Hatters has more than its fair share of secrets to reveal.

A most enjoyable read, with likeable characters who have experienced love, loss and heartache and are determined to do the right thing for Hatters.

A great story from beginning to end, I loved the characters and how Leo’s character evolved. It had a bit of everything and handled some quite delicate issues. I’m now wanting to live at Hatters!

Now I want to go to the Powell-Cotton Museum in Kent!

This novel was born out of Harris’ love affair with this museum, house and gardens.

Love at first sight! This is what Cate experiences as she looked into his eyes she feels an instant, extreme and romantic attraction to Richard when she is introduced to Simon’s, her current boyfriend’s, best friend. And it was reciprocal.

A wonderful start to the story, which sadly turns quite dark as Cate deals with Richard’s chronic depression and in the end he can’t cope which has tragic consequences. Harris portrayed his condition admirably as it got worse over time. She doesn’t share too many details about this however there is a twist towards the end when more detail is uncovered.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all doom and gloom. It is a great adventure and the story unfolds brilliantly.

Richard’s past was unclear to Cate and when she and Leo had to move into the Hatters Museum of the Wide Wide World a whole new appreciation and understanding of what Richard had been through emerged.

The most critical realisation when Cate and Leo had settled into this unknown environment is that Cate had to fight to save Leo’s inheritance from being sold piece by piece by the trustees.

Another delightful novel about how good comes out of bad. All about deep and heartfelt love affairs, family relationships, courage, tenacity and compromise.

The early part of the book didn’t grab me as quickly as I would have liked, however it was well worth persevering and this is why I’m only giving it 4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Excerpts:

‘“I knew straightaway. I knew before he sat down, before he spoke. It was something utterly primal.’”

‘“Rich put his hand out and shook mine. I looked into his eyes and knew that he felt exactly the same way.’”

‘“I was overwhelmed by the shuddering loneliness of living with someone with chronic depression. It’s hard to stay sympathetic and sad and angry all at the same time, torn between meeting the needs of both the people you love.’”

Thanks to the author, Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.

Cate and her son Leo are packed up and ready to leave London as Cate has been made redundant from her job as a teacher and has struggled to find a new job, as s a last resort she has managed to arrange for her and Leo to stay at ‘Hatters Museum of the Wide Wide World’ for the summer. Hatters Museum is in trust to her husband’s family and she doesn’t want to be there without him but she has nowhere else to go. The next 6 weeks will change her and her son’s life forever.

This a really uplifting story about grief, family, hope and love. It is a very real story with very genuine characters. The only thing I found a bit difficult to get my head around was the speed of events taking place in the story in the short time period of 6 weeks but this is just being picky as overall it is a really enjoyable book.

Having fell in love with Grace Atherton, I was both excited and full of trepidation at reading Anstey Harris’s new novel - could it possibly match up to her debut novel that will always keep a place close to my heart?

I had no need to worry, Where We Belong is everything I could hope for, and more. Although entirely different to Truth & Triumphs, Anstey Harris conjured up the same magic of love, loss and new beginnings in her exquisite writing.

Few books bring me to tears and few books keep me planted to a spot where ‘just one more page’ is played on repeat. Where We Belong is one of those books.

Harris’s beautiful and descriptive writing makes me feel as if I know the characters, and that they know me personally. Such stunning detail in the storylines - Something so beautiful growing out of something so tragic.

I cannot wait to have a physical copy of this book sat on my shelf.

I really enjoyed 'Grace Atherton' so was very pleased to be sent an ARC of this novel thanks to the publisher and Netgalley.
It tells the story of Cate and her son Leo who go to live at Hatters,the house and museum owned by the family of Cate's late husband Richard .The museum is run by Araminta,an enigmatic and chilly family friend.At first things are difficult for Cate as she tries to fit in to her new surroundings but as her son settles in to his new surroundings and she starts to rebuild her life,she starts to get her life back together.A new relationship with a local artist holds promise but then events lead to more changes for Cate and Leo.
I found the pace of the story very slow and for some reason I found Cate's narrative quite irritating.It's nearly all written in the present tense and I kept just wanting the story to move on,as there's a lot of introspection and analysis.So I would say that although it's very well written as far as descriptive language and setting go,I didn't enjoy this book as much as the author's last one.

What an interesting story! It is based in a type of museum filled with stuffed animals that I believe actually does exist. It tells a tale of a mother, Cate and her son, Leo, who have been left homeless while Cate has also lost her job. Because of their circumstances they are forced to return to her dead husband’s family home, which is an apartment in the museum. A relative of her husband, Araminta, already lives in one of the apartments and appears none too happy to receive Cate into her home. As the story develops we are given glimpses into Cate’s past and the difficulties she has faced with her husband’s depression only helped by their friend, Steven, who has supported the couple over the years. The museum and the creatures within are central to the plot along with the people Cate and Leo meet in their new life. There are many themes to this book. It looks at how deceptive appearances can be as Cate makes judgements about people which are based on appearance and end up being incorrect. Overall it is an excellent read with great characters based on the importance of love and friendship.

** spoiler alert ** I don't know if I missed something at the beginning of this book,but right up till the talk of extra chromosome and saying how old Leo was,I had two much younger characters in my head.
Never really shook off that mental picture of Cate.
I really enjoyed the parts of the story that involved Richard,the museum,the restoration,learning to start again .
Somewhat I felt though,that things kept getting in the way of that story.
The fire,the fight with the board,the thefts... almost as if the book was trying out different genres.
Overall though,I felt slightly heart warmed by the small family of Lyon Morris we leave behind,and will remember the animals as quite the thing!

Beautiful characters and setting. Just loved this story. Flowed beautifully. Will be looking out for more by Anstey.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. What a fabulous story of family life and its ups and down and the setting for this book was beautiful.