Review: When life gives you Lemons

When life gives you Lemons by Fiona Gibson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Viv is in her fifties and experiencing the joys of the menopause whilst also trying to bring up a seven year old daughter and hold down a full-time job as a personal assistant. Her husband Andy, an endocrinologist is being less than sympathetic, ironic given that he is a doctor specialising in hormones, and the romance appears to be dead - although that turns out to be less about the menopause and more about the affair he is having with Dr Estelle Lang, who annoyingly appears to be sailing through her menopause without gaining weight or any of the other unpleasant effects.

While her friends are encouraging Viv to go out and meet someone new, Viv is more interested in finding herself. With a group of disparate friends and neighbours Viv jump-starts her career.

A pleasant read, but difficult to classify.

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Review: Forever Summer

Forever Summer by Jenny Oliver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Norah Whittaker's life has been turned upside down. Although her parents rejected their privileged upbringings to life a more genuine life, her father was still looking for get-rich-quick schemes and has recently been sent to prison for investment fraud. Norah and her mother are still living on their houseboat, although no longer moored on the idyllic Mulberry Island, but now she goes to the very exclusive Chelsea High School, all funded by her maternal grandparents. Things are looking good, Norah has a boyfriend, Ezra, but he and his family are staying in New York pursuing specialist treatment for Ezra's little brother.

When the new school term starts we are introduced to Laurent Summer, brother to Mean Girl Coco Summers, who has been in Argentina for six months improving his polo game. Laurent is just as good looking as his sister, but also just as entitled, arrogant and condescending.

What follows is a madcap mixture of school sports (but polo not football), advertising shoots on a Greek Island for a perfume brand for which Coco is an influencer, plots involving a criminal gang and Norah's father, a love triangle, and the school play.

Imagine Mean Girls meets Mallory Towers meets Gossip Girl - if that's your vibe then I think this will be right up your street. I'm *whispers* fifty-five years old and I still enjoyed this high school romp.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: The Beach Read Book Club

The Beach Read Book Club by Kathryn Freeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lottie Watt joined a book club and got a rescue dog when her long-term boyfriend Henry accepts a job with a newspaper in America, but as the months have passed she realises that she has begun to dread book club because the books are always so worthy and the discussions about the books are more like an exam. After being called out for failing to read My sister, the serial killer and wanting to talk about more than just a book, Lottie decides to start up her own book club, a book club that likes romance novels, just the sort of thing you like to read on a beach holiday, and so The Beach Read Book Club is born.

Matthew Steele was a trader in the City, but after his mother died he left London and ought a house and a bookshop on the South Coast of England, hoping to make a new start with his father and his younger sister Amy. Unfortunately, neither his father or sister appears to be happy, especially not with him, and he doesn't seem to be able to let go of bad habits. Quiet and reserved, a recent divorce has left Matt feeling adrift.

Lottie persuades Matt to let the book club use the café attached to the bookshop once a month for two hours after closing time. Soon the club consists of Lottie, her pregnant BFF Sally, a pensioner with a penchant for gin and raunchy romances called Audrey, a lonely middle-aged married woman called Gira, and a divorced single middle-aged woman called Heidi. The book club reads books by Jilly Cooper, E.L. James, Christina Lauren, Julie Caplin, and Helen Hoag to name just a few - which is great because I have read several of the books myself. However, whilst Audrey might rate the raunch factor, the book club is more about friendship and helping each other. Slowly but surely Matt and his family are drawn into the book club and Lottie sits at the centre, bringing people together and helping them find their way.

I really liked this book and it slightly reminded me of the film The Jane Austen Book Club, Kathryn Freeman is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors.

I was offered a free copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Love Life

Love Life by Nancy Peach
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tess Carter is a trainee doctor, currently on rotation in a hospice caring for the terminally ill. She suffers from low self-esteem, occasional bulimia, and has recently found her boyfriend in bed with another man. When a new patient is checked into the hospice with terminal cancer Tess is astonished to see that the patient's son Edward Russell is no other than the young man Eddie she met at a party years ago and made an instant connection. Back then she had a boyfriend and never did anything more than kiss Eddie, but oh how she wished she had. Sadly, finding a lawyer called Eddie (last name unknown) in London is quite difficult.

Unfortunately, the charming, sweet, clever, funny Eddie Tess met back then has turned into a cold, judgmental man, who clearly does not remember Tess at all and challenges her every professional decision, probably because he is in denial about his mother's prognosis. However, as time goes on Tess and Edward find some middle ground and when a personal crisis occurs it is Eddie who comes to the rescue.

Part romance, part women's fiction (think Katie Fforde with edge, or maybe Susie Tate) this would have been a four star read if it hadn't been for the author's decision to give Tess two voices in her head: one a car-crash TV chat show host (think Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer); and the other Jane Austen. The chat show host likes to belittle Tess and make her sound like trailer trash, while Jane Austen tries to bolster her ego. I hated both of them and their interactions were very irritating.

Otherwise, the characters were engaging with real life problems ad the story was well-written, if a little predictable.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: A Good Day for Chardonnay

A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sunshine Vicram is a single mother of a fifteen year old daughter, Aurora, and Police Chief of a small, quirky town in New Mexico after her parents somehow arranged for her to be elected and brought her back from her job in Sante Fe. Sunshine was abducted when she was seventeen, held for five days before being rescued by someone who killed her abductor. Nine months later Aurora was born. Sunshine has amnesia about the abduction, her rescue and about one month prior to those events, but she is still determined to identify who killed her abductor Kubrick Ravinder, who just happened to have been the uncle to Sunshine great crush, Levi Ravinder. Levi has single-handedly dragged the Ravinder family from its shady roots into respectability (well most of them) and is a successful businessman with one of the most famous corn whiskey distilleries in the world.

I imagine that this was intended to be a sort of Gilmore Girls/Sookie Stackhouse kind of small town, with kooky characters at every turn and a wise-cracking mother/daughter relationship. The trouble is, Auri was a bit of a contradictory character, extremely bright yet prone to using the wrong words (like saying she will apply for emaciation instead of emancipation), acting like Nancy Drew as if she was twelve not fifteen.

Also, there was just too much going on. An assault, attempted murder and hit-and-run which puts a man in the hospital and badly injures Levi. A series of disappearances in the 1950s which may have been pinned on the wrong guy. Sunshine's first case coming back to haunt her. A mythical group of women who allegedly run the town. A mystery associated with Auri's boyfriend Cruz. HAlf the Ravinder clan confessing to the murder of Kubrick Ravinder. Auri and Cruz trying to prove that a little old lady is really a serial killer. The mystery of who really killed Kubrick Ravinder, and whether Kubrick had an accomplice. This reminds me of those books that have the tagline 'A laugh out loud comedy' which inevitably means they are seriously unfunny. This book felt like it was trying too hard to be kooky and quirky, when every single character is 'a character' it just feels like hard work, especially when everyone has to be given a backstory. It also felt a bit jagged as if it had maybe been rewritten several times and/or repurposed, as if it was originally intended to be more of a thriller but then comedy got added? Or it was meant to be a Gilmore Girls type town and then Sunshine's backstory got a bit dark?

Anyway, this was a struggle to finish, even though I had nothing else to do on a wet weekend, yet the bones of the story were really interesting, I just wanted one or two fewer storylines and less of the 'look at me, I'm zany and kooky' vibes - don't even get me started on those super-annoying 'funny' signs at the start of each chapter.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: To Sir, with Love

To Sir, with Love by Lauren Layne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

When a book is billed as Love Is Blind meets You've Got Mail, is it wrong to feel slightly disappointed that there are no surprises in the story?

Gracie is a romantic. She's got a picture in her head of The One, he's got long floppy hair and a Dad-bod. To keep the family champagne shop running she gave up her dreams of art college in Paris and now she's barely keeping the business above water, while her sister and brother pursue their own dreams. She has been conducting a relationship of sorts with a man she was matched with on a dating app, one which doesn't provide photos. The man is question was signed up by his friends as a joke at a bachelor party and has a girlfriend. Nevertheless the two of them have discussed likes and dislikes and developed a friendship. It's a pity that this man, who Gracie refers to as 'Sir', is in a romantic relationship because otherwise he feels perfect.

Then Gracie runs into a gorgeous man in the street with the most amazing Tiffany blue eyes. She feels an immediate frisson which is then dampened by the appearance of his beautiful girlfriend and later by the realisation that he is Sebastian Andrews, the property developer who owns the building where her shop is located. Sebastian is trying to buy Gracie's shop out of the five remaining years on the lease. So now she has two men in her life, both off limits for different reasons.

Just as in the films, Gracie confides in Sir about the trials and tribulations of her life, often about the run-ins she has with Sebastian, who steadfastly refuses to stay in the villain-box in which she has put him. Since we have all seen You've Got Mail at least once a year in the 20+ years since it was released, we are all aware that Sir is also Sebastian - Lauren Layne has a a clever work around to explain why Gracie doesn't put two and two together (although now I wonder why Sebastian didn't?).

Anyway, the fact that this is a retelling of You've Got Mail is both the good thing and the bad thing about this book. Bad, because I already know the story and changing a bookshop to a champagne shop and emails to messages in a dating app is just tinkering around the edges. Good, because Lauren Layne does change what I felt was the cruelty in You've Got Mail, that Tom Hanks knew that Meg Ryan was his secret correspondent and that he toyed with her and forced her business to close and gives Gracie some more backbone.

Also, maybe in keeping with its predecessors, this is a very PG-rated book, no raunchy one-night stands for Gracie.

Recommended for fans of You've Got Mail (or those too young to remember wanting to be Meg Ryan, or at least have her hair).

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: One Lucky Summer

One Lucky Summer by Jenny Oliver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ruben de Lacy has returned to his family's home Willoughby Hall for one final time before selling it. Shallow, wealthy and good-looking Ruben is surprised when his ex-girlfriend Jenny arrives with their twelve year-old daughter Zadie in tow - apparently he had agreed to look after Zadie while Jenny and her new husband Barry go on their honeymoon.

Looking after a young chubby daughter with dubious dress sense isn't Ruben's idea of a good time. Then he stumbles across a little plastic box which is part of a treasure hunt which had been set up years before and never took place. The treasure hunts were a very big thing in his childhood and he can't envisage doing this without the two girls who's father created the hunt in the first place; Olive and Dolly.

Olive has just been dumped by her very boring and respectable boyfriend Mark. Dolly has just been suspended from her job as a police officer for disobeying orders. For their own reasons they both return to Willoughby Hall for one last treasure hunt. But returning to Cornwall forces each of them to face what happened the night the treasure hunt was laid, to address feelings that have been suppressed for decades and to make peace. It's going to be a heck of a summer!

I've got to say that I thought this was going to be more of a romantic comedy, a la Katie Fforde, based on the cover. Whereas, this is more women's fiction. There's a lot of remembering the past and giving voice to past feelings, about owning emotions and letting them go. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable to watch all three of them finally lay the ghosts to rest and look forward to the future.

Recommended for lazy summer reading in the garden.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: This Year, Maybe

This Year, Maybe by Jenny Gladwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Christmas isn't a good time of year for Kate. Two years ago her beloved father died on Christmas Eve. Last year her husband was killed cycling home on 1 December and this year the family's pet hamster has died. On the surface everything looks good for Kate (barring the deaths, naturally) a mother of two living in a large Edinburgh flat, her own interior design business, two gorgeous children, a loving mother and sister. Unfortunately, the reality is somewhat different. Kate is stuck in a deep hole of sadness, if not outright depression. Her husband Adam was not the successful financial wizzkid she and everyone else thought him to be, he speculated, over-extended and now she has no savings and a semi-derelict flat with no funds for the necessary repairs. Added to which, she has no clients, she's fed her children fish fingers every night for the past few weeks, and she's leaning heavily on her friend Nat and her partner Felix to pick the kids up, feed them etc.

Kate's mother Jean is at a different stage of grief. She's a regular attendee at a Grief Group and has started doing lots of new activities (pottery, golf etc) but still can't bear to get rid of any of her husband's possessions.

As another Christmas looms Jean and Kate are trying to make a new start, but with the PTA Christmas Fayre rivalries and shocking secrets being revealed this could be a Christmas like no other.

How often do I have to say I liked it but I didn't love it? Whilst I felt a great deal of sympathy for Kate while I was reading this, now I'm asking myself what she did all day long while the children were at school if she had no clients - lay on the sofa eating biscuits and wallowing I suspect. Also, from comments made by Kate's sister and some of the PTA mums Kate appears to be a femme fatale with men falling over their feet to help her, yet she's never really described that way and she doesn't read like that. I think the Jean storyline was kind of unnecessary and created a fairy-tale ending rather than something realistic which I thought was a pity. Overall, in the last chapter or two everything miraculously turned out all right - I would have preferred to see Kate slowly dragging herself out of the rut she has fallen into rather than a whole book of rut followed by a wham-bam recovery (if that makes any sense at all?).

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: A Kiss for a Kiss

A Kiss for a Kiss by Helena Hunting
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Jake and Hanna's story.

Jake Masterson is the GM of Seattle's NHL team and single father to Queenie after his girlfriend couldn't handle being a teenage mother. Now Queenie is all grown up and engaged to be married to Ryan Kingston (Queenie and King, bleurgh), one of Jake's players. Jake's older sister Hanna, who is really his biological mother, has been helping Jake and Queenie with the wedding planning, but things have got very hot and heavy between them. Hanna thinks she's perimenopausal and so, given she and her ex-husband resorted to IVF to (unsuccessfully) try to have a child, she thinks she can't get pregnant. One thing leads to another and before she even realises it she is 12 weeks pregnant. What will Jake say? What will Ryan say? What will her parents say? How will she and Jake raise a child when he is based in Seattle and she lives in Tennessee?

I really liked the sound of this book but sadly for me the reality fell a little short of the expectations. There seemed to be too much time spent with Hanna debating where she and Jake should live and, frankly, not enough plot. I mean the guy raised his daughter alone when he was little more than a teenager, whilst he might regret that he isn't going to spend his forties living the single life there was never a doubt that he would be there for his child. Also he earns millions of dollars a year so travel and living expenses are never going to be an issue.

Also, I am simultaneously reading Kate Meader's Rookie Rebels series and the similarities of names confused the heck out of me, I was thinking Violet? Four kids? No, I'm sure she hasn't - wrong series, wrong author!

Overall, not enough hockey, too much shilly-shallying about where to live and not enough drama.

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Review: Infamous

Infamous by Minerva Spencer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Richard and Lucien (Lord Davenport) Redvers might be twins but they couldn't be more different. Lucien, the elder, is charming, well-built, devastatingly handsome. Richard is slighter, wears glasses, is still a little bit spotty, and has a fascination with beetles and bugs. Lucien is about to make an offer for the hand of society beauty, and all-round mean girl, Celia Trent, not knowing that his twin is also in lust with Celia, despite her caustic tongue and spiteful comments. Then at the Duke of Stanford's ball Celia crosses a line, egged on by Sebastian, Duke of Dowden, who has a hatred of Richard Redvers, and earns herself the dubious title Lady Infamous.

A decade later, Richard is a well-travelled, single man, still obsessed by beetles, but grown into his looks and filled out in the body. Lucien is married with two children, and Celia is acting as a ladies companion to Lady Yancy. Their paths might never had crossed again if Richard's younger sister Antonia hadn't been getting married, to Sebastian of all people, and Lady Yancy was invited as the friend of Sebastian's aunt, Lady Morton.

Bringing all the protagonists from that night together for the first time in a decade at Lord and Lady Davenport's country house for a Christmas wedding was bound to create waves. Secrets unfold and Richard and Celia have a chance at love, if Sebastian doesn't sabotage things.

I loved this, disgraced bad girl, nerd turned hot, second chance romance, smokin' hot lovin' and a baddie so evil he makes you want to hiss every time he's on the page. Also, we get to see some of my favourite characters from The Outcasts series.

My only quibble was that Celia's story had some strong similarities to that of Daphne Davenport. I made a similar comment about the final book in The Outcasts series, there were too many similarities between the three heroes' backstories and I had an overwhelming feeling of deja vu, this is less obvious but still striking to someone who only read The Outcast series last year.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Opposites Attract

Opposites Attract by Jacqueline Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Megan is a science journalist, living her best life. Something made even better when she passes the flatmate test to share an apartment with Josh in New York. Josh is her ideal man, cute, geeky, interested in all those nerdy science and nature documentaries on TV. Megan doesn't understand why her dislike of (American) football was a clincher when Josh interviewed her, little does she know that Josh's older brother Brandon is a famous professional football player. As the only nerd in a family of football fanatics Megan always felt left out and different to her siblings.

Megan's attempts to charm Josh are thwarted at every turn by Brandon who has taken to hanging around their apartment like a third roomie, not getting the nerdy jokes or understanding the articles they discuss. At least he and Megan have some twisted sniping routine between them. For Brandon's part it's nice to meet a woman who likes or dislikes him for his personality and looks, not because he pulls in eight figures a year in salary, before endorsements. But it doesn't matter how rich and successful Brandon is, his parents will always favour Josh, because he's a scientist like them.

I loved every page of this, Science Barbie meets Football Ken. The banter is slick and charming, the characters are engaging and I was swept along effortlessly with this cute opposites-attract romantic comedy.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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