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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