Love at Café Lompar

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Nofel ysbrydoledig am gyfrinachau teuluol a dechreuadau newydd. Wrth glirio eiddo ei diweddar ŵr mae Grace yn darganfod bod ganddo deulu arall. Mae hi a'i merch Kat yn teithio i Montenegro i chwilio amdanynt. Tybed a fydd y fam a'r ferch yn teithio'n llwyddiannus drwy emosiynau poenus, cyfleoedd a charwriaethau newydd?

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

An uplifting novel of family secrets and fresh starts. Grace is clearing her late husband's things, when she discovers he had another family. She and her daughter Kat travel to Montenegro to find them. Can mother and daughter successfully navigate painful emotions, new opportunities and new loves?

Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

In-stock items will be dispatched within 3 business days, usually by Royal Mail Tracked 48. For pre-orders, we’ll dispatch within 3 business days of receiving the item from our supplier.

Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Jacqui and Anna Burns are a mother and daughter writing team. Anna, a doctor and trainee psychiatrist, and Jacqui, an English teacher, visited Montenegro in 2019 and were captivated by its beauty. Living over two-hundred miles apart, they wrote Love at Café Lompar during the early weeks of lockdown, writing alternate chapters before emailing them to each other to create a dual narrative viewpoint This is the first novel for both of them, but they are working on a follow up, reluctant to leave the Lompar family they have grown to love. Jacqui and Anna were both brought up in south Wales, where Jacqui still lives, in Kidwelly.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

Worlds collide in the sublime setting of Montenegro in this beautifully composed novel, written by mother-daughter writing duo Jacqui and Anna Burns, who remind us that when the going gets tough, it is the essence of family (and good food!) that keeps one afloat. The familial connection of Jacqui and Anna is echoed throughout the novel as they depict the lives of mother and daughter Grace and Kat Lompar, who are trying to handle the recent death of their husband/father Dan (or Danilo) after learning of his secret family that resides in his home country of Montenegro. Grace – a charity worker and previously devoted wife – is written by Jacqui, whilst Kat – a sous-chef who is dissatisfied with her life as a Londoner – is written by Anna. The pair decide to deal with the anguish bound up in Dan’s clandestine affair by confronting the situation head-on and travelling to the coastal town of Tivat to meet Dan’s ‘other woman’ Rosa and their son, Luka. What ensues threatens to break the bond between mother and daughter forever. Whilst Kat becomes infatuated with the possibility of a new life in Montenegro after working at Rosa’s restaurant, ‘Café Lompar’, Grace continues to battle with the betrayal and shame of being ‘the faded wife’, unable to see Rosa as anything but a resemblance of ‘the myth of the femme fatale’ who stole her husband. The book deals with the idea of the ‘other woman’ as a kind of ‘femme fatale’ well, unproblematising this outdated and somewhat misogynistic assumption by humanising Rosa and her son, in particular. Both authors take real care to ensure that Dan’s other family is relatable and thus easy to sympathise with, which not only helps to dispel the sexist myth but aids in the formation of an extraordinary bond between the two worlds. Ultimately, both Lompar families suffer the consequences of Dan’s deceitfulness – however, with him out of the picture, Kat and Grace build something wonderful with Rosa, placing female resilience at the forefront of a story that will leave you satiated. Like their characters, both Anna and Jacqui managed also to find a silver lining – writing this novel together during Covid soothed the tumultuous months of the pandemic as they allowed the stone walls of Tivat to engulf them, whilst additionally keeping their relationship as mother and daughter alive at a time when they were forced apart. Their prioritisation of this invaluable connection is what makes reading this book such an immersive and simply enjoyable experience, along with their vivid descriptions of the stunning Montenegrin town that one can only imagine as a print on the front of a postcard. Love at Café Lompar is a story of family, resilience and essentially, in its most prehistoric form, adaptation – a human instinct that couldn’t be more relevant to what has been required of the world in recent times, and is, in this story, driven by nothing but love.