Blog Tour: A New Life in Amsterdam by Helga Jensen

 

Sandy is feeling a bit lost in life. Her ex husband has moved back to Australia and started a new life, and now her daughter has done the same thing. Sandy tends to make herself feel better with impulse buys. Her house is stuffed with items and clothes that she just had to have but they after the initial buzz when she purchases them, they don't really bring her any joy.

When she makes the biggest online impulse buy of them all, a houseboat on a canal in Amsterdam, it is a chance for a new adventure, a new start. Amsterdam was a place that she visited years before with her friend and loved, and so it almost feels like a dream to be able to live there.  The houseboat needs a lot of work inside and out, and before long Sandy finds herself immersed in life in Amsterdam, mainly thanks to her friendly and very attractive neighbour, Abe, and the real estate agent who sold her the boat.

I did enjoy all the sights and sounds of Amsterdam, especially when Sandy's former neighbour Debbie came to visit. 

It would be totally cool to be able to stay on a houseboat in the middle of Amsterdam and be right in the city. I don't know that I would want to have to do all the renovations, although my husband does love a project so it could be right up his alley.

In some ways this book felt a bit surface level to me. Whilst her shopaholic tendencies were important in setting up the story, they were just glossed over that, almost like the problem was solved as soon as she moved into the houseboat. If there's one thing that I do know from having moved countries and states it is that the one constant is you, and so your problems do tend to go with you.

My brother in law and his family live in the Netherlands, not too far from Amsterdam, so the likelihood is quite high that I will visit there again. I am slowly collecting a few ideas for places I would like to visit when next we go there. For example, from Melissa Ashley's The Naturalist of Amsterdam I found out about Hortus Botanicus, the oldest botanical gardens in the world. If I could only choose one place to visit from this book it would be the Amsterdam Boekenmarkt - the book market.

I did also find myself going down the rabbit hole looking at felted animals. They look so cute!

Helga Jensen writes the kind of books I love to read right now. They feature older characters making a new start in amazing places. I look forward to reading more from her! Oh, and how lovely is this cover!

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews. Thanks to the publisher, and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy.

Rating 3.5/5

About the book

A New Life in Amsterdam

Could down-sizing her life mean up-sizing her dreams?

Since her daughter grew up and left home, Sandy has found herself filling her house with things - impulse purchases that she just has to have but that quickly lose their sheen. Why would she need an expensive set of copper pans when she has no one to cook for?

Realising that her shopping habit is out of control, she asks herself: can she de-clutter, downsize and start a new life?

She has always wanted to live on a barge, and she reasons that there is no way she would have room for random purchases on a boat. Taking the bravest decision of her life, Sandy buys and refurbishes a barge in the beautiful city of Amsterdam.

Relishing her independence, she is not looking for love, but as the nights draw in and the leaves start to fall from the trees, she finds herself drawn to cafe owner and expert hot chocolate maker Abe.

Is she willing to take a second chance on finding the one?

Purchase Link - https://geni.us/k2IyNBF

About the Author 

Helga Jensen is an internationally award-winning British/Danish best selling author and journalist. Her debut novel was a winning entry in the 2017 Montegrappa First Fiction competition at Dubai’s Emirates Literary Festival. Her debut was also a contender for the coveted 2021 Joan Hessayon Award for new writers. Helga's best selling novel, Fly me to Paris, was a finalist for the 2024 Popular Romantic Fiction Award. In 2025, her novel, A Christmas in Prague, was also a finalist for the Popular Romantic Fiction Award.



Helga holds a BA Hons in English Literature and Creative Writing, along with a Creative Writing MA from Bath Spa University. She is currently finishing a Creative Writing PhD.



Social Media Links –

Twitter - @HelgajensenF

Instagram - @Helgajensenauthor

Facebook - @Helgajensenfordeauthor

Six Degrees of Separation: The Safekeep to I Knew You Were Trouble

 Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz and A Good Book and a Cup of Tea hosted at Boondock Ramblings.

This month's starting point is the 2025 Women’s Prize winner, The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden.

A Dutch author I have read is Simone Van Der Blugt. Her book was called Midnight Blue and was about the distinctive Delft pottery, in particular the time when the art on the pottery changed from being of Asian scenes to being of Dutch scenes which we associate with it now.

Another art inspired book was The Naturalist of Amsterdam by Melissa Ashley which featured a mother and daughter naturalists who drew flowers and produced amazing books. Part of this book was set in Suriname which was a Dutch colony. (My review)

When I first visited Amsterdam back in the 1990s I was a little surprised that we went to an Indonesian restaurant for dinner. The reason for this was that what we now call Indonesia was another Dutch colony known as the Dutch East Indies. Sunbirds by Mirandi Riwoe tells the story of fighting for Indonesian independence from the Dutch against the backdrop of WII. (My review)

The capital of independent Indonesia is now called Jakarta but it used to be known as Batavia. My brother in law and his family live in a town where there is a replica of the boat of the same name (and a shopping centre called Batavialand!). A new release that I am interested in reading is Daughters of Batavia by Stefanie Koens

The Dutch played an important part in the history of European discovery of Australia. landing here long before the British arrived.  I have long been interested in the story of the Batavia, which was shipwrecked off the coast of Western Australia in 1629. A book that tells the story of the Batavia is The Night Ship by Jess Kidd.

Finally, I am going to finish with a contemporary novel by an Australian author which is partially set in Amsterdam and features a tall Dutch man as the main male character. My husband is 100% Dutch blood even though he was born in South Africa, as both of his parents are Dutch. The book  is I Knew You Were Trouble by Sandy Barker but Robert is no trouble whatsoever! (My review)

So there's my Six Degrees of Separation with a Dutch flavour. Both the first and last covers feature the distinctive houses of Amsterdam so that is almost a full circle right?

Next month, the starting point is the winner of the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Ghost Cities by Siang Lu.

Will you be joining us?

Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holidays - Part 2

This week we have moved from The Netherlands to France where we will be spending a couple of weeks, but before that I have a few more things to post about in my current series of linked posts about what we ate on holiday.

On the Saturday before Christmas, Robert and I took the opportunity to head into Amsterdam for a chance to do some sightseeing. We started with a traditional Dutch pancake which is made from wholemeal flour. I chose to have the ham version,

Whilst walking around the city, we came across the most amazing lolly/candy shop. I am pretty sure that we wouldn't be able to the store displayed like this in Australia but it did look amazing. I also took a picture of tennis ball gum balls and silver coated hazelnuts. You could get them in gold as well and when you scooped them out and let them land back in the container they looked like liquid silver. Gorgeeous. We ate something different from this store though.

We have eaten the set menus whilst in France, where you pay a fixed price to have either a starter and a main or a main and a dessert or all three. While we were in Honfleur, I had moules mariniere et frites. Here's the before and after.

We also had some really, really delicious cider which prompted us to go and visit a Calvados (apple brandy)  distillery which was really interesting.

Yesterday we went to see the Bayeux Tapestry which was amazing. Here's a tiny portion which I snuck a photo of which shows a feast being prepared and served.

Last night we decided to just choose what we wanted from the menu. We had a little something something from a patisserie in the hotel room so we decided to have a selection of Normandy cheeses and then I had a pork fillet with wild berry sauch and truffled mash potatoes. It was so delicious!

The cheeses included neufchatel which isn't readily available in Australia as far as I know. Back in the 80s we used to sell chocolate and strawberry flavoured versions but I don't remember trying the non flavoured version before now.

This week we are spending some more time in Normandy then going to the Loire Valley and heading to Paris.

Finally, I wanted to wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: What we ate on holiday - Part 1

As I mentioned in my last post, I am currently in the Netherlands. We arrived last Sunday night after two extremely long flights. The first from Melbourne to Dubai was 14 hours and then the second flight from Dubai to Amsterdam was another 8 hours. My brother in law and his family live in a town about an hour outside of Amsterdam, and my parents in law are here from South Africa as well. It is the first time that my husband will have Christmas with his parentss and brother in at least 15 years so it is kind of special.

For today's Weekend Cooking post, I thought I would talk about a few different things from our trip so far. You can expect more over the coming weeks.

The last couple of times we flew long haul flights to the US I was quite disappointed in the food that we were served. We got to our  destination and we were hungry. However, that was not the case with these flights. We flew with Emirates and the food was pretty good and there was plenty!  

The first time we went to the supermarket, my husband was very excited. There are many foods of Dutch origin that it isn't easy to obtain in Australia or they are very expensive so we spent quite some time wandering through the supermarket looking at items that bought back childhood memories.

One item that we did buy was Komijnekaas which is cheese that is flavoured with cumin. My husband tells me that we can get it in Australia but I have never seen it, or even looked for it for that matter! We have had this on toast for breakfast most of this week and it is delicious!


One flavour that is very prevalent here is apple. Since we have been here so far we have had a modern interpretation of apple pie, as well as apple ball and apple strudel. The apple ball is very interesting. It is slices of apple that is layered with vanilla sauce and then rolled in a crunch coating. It was delicious!

We often eat croquette and have tried various different types over the last couple of years. We have talked about trying to make croquettes but my huband tells met that it is quite a production and takes a lot of time and effort.

When we visited The Hague, I decided it was time to have proper Dutch croquettes and they were absolutely delicious. In this case, they were served with really fresh bread, mustard and a little slaw.

There are still a number of things that I would like to try before we leave The Netherlands, including freshly made stroopewaffels and olliebollen. Olliebollen is traditionally eaten at New Years. My husband did tell me that we are not here at the right time of year, but given that it is only a week until New Year's Eve and we are going to be France then, I think that we can have them a few days early!

One thing we will definitely be having moreof before we head to France is hot chocolate! Oh my goodness, they are good here. My husband is very happy because usually the hot chocolate comes laden with proper cream, and cream is one of his favourite things.

I am sure that we will also take the opportunity to try other Dutch foods before we move onto France!

To those of you who celebrate I wish you a very happy Christmas!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Virtual Advent Tour - Christmas markets in The Netherlands

Welcome to my stop on the Virtual Advent tour hosted at Sprite Writes. I am so pleased to see that the tour is still going strong. The first virtual advent tour was back in 2006 so that isn't a bad run!!

We are currently in The Netherlands where we are spending Christmas with my husband's brother and his family who now live here. His parents are also here from South Africa. It's the first time my husband will spend Christmas with his parents and brother in around 15 years so it is a pretty big deal!

This part of our trip is all about the family things, so when we were planning our trip, there was only one thing that I insisted that we needed to do. I had to be able to visit a Christmas market. If I got to do anything else touristy it would be a bonus.

As it happens we have visited two markets (so far). The first was in a town called Valkenburg which is about 3 hours away from here and it is considered to be one of the biggest markets in The Netherlands and is the biggest underground market in Europe. The town of Valkenburg is quite close to the Dutch border, so there was a mix of nationalities visiting. We visited during the week so it wasn't too busy, thank goodness. I imagine it would get very busy on weekends!

The thing that makes Valkenburg unique is that all the markets are held in the caves underneath the ruins of a medieval castle.  There are four caves, but we only visited two - Gemeentegrot (Municipal Cave) and Fluweelengrot (Velvet Cave). 

The setting in the caves was amazing. I was a bit disappointed by the stalls themselves, but it was still worth the long drive to visit such an interesting place and so much history. For example, in one of the caves there is a chapel that was established in the time of the French Revolution. Catholic priests would  run church services, marriages, christenings hidden away. There are still services held now on request. It would be a magical place to get married for sure.

There is also a daily parade through the town but we didn't stay for that because it was a long drive back to where we are staying.

We also visited the Royal Christmas Market in The Hague today, which we visited as it is where my mother in law grew up. This was set in a park surrounded by old buildings. There were bare trees that had lights strung between them, the smell of food cooking, music playing.

I really loved visiting both of these places and could easily have spent a lot more time in both of these towns. The Hague seemed particularly interesting, especially because of my mother in law's connection, but also because the city has an interesting history!