Virtual Strangers by Sam CanningMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ada returns to Edinburgh to live with her mother when a love affair goes horribly awry and sets up her own PR company, even if at the moment she only has one, rather flaky, client. Ada's best friends are a married couple with two small children, compared to them she feels like she's not really adulting, especially when she is sleeping in her childhood bedroom. Ada doesn't feel she can tell her friends what really happened to bring her back to Edinburgh, she's too ashamed, and they keep trying to get her to go on dates.
Rather than get under her mother's feet all day, Ada rents a space in the back of a local café to work, as do several other regulars. After complaining bitterly when a new man takes what Ada considers to be 'her table', she and the man, Fraser strike up conversation. It turns out that Fraser is a journalist for a local newspaper, tasked to write about unusual local events and attractions. With time on her hands Ada starts to accompany Fraser on some of his wild and wacky adventures. But although they have great conversations, neither of them shares anything very personal.
Meanwhile, while searching through her childhood bedroom Ada finds a pile of Agatha Christie fan-fiction that she wrote as a teenager and after rereading a few, decides they are actually not too bad and submits them to a low-key Agatha Christie fan-fiction website. Imagine her astonishment when one of the other site users nominates her for fan-fiction of the month. Ada and this person Myster-E begin messaging back and forth about their Agatha Christie obsessions and develop a real friendship, exchanging quite personal details about their lives.
This was another riff on You've Got Mail (or The Shop Around The Corner for the old-timers), I have no idea why I have read so many of these book recently. This one worked very well. I liked the way in which Fraser and Ada showed each other different parts of their personalities in person and online. Again, I wasn't pleased that both Ada's friend and Fraser blew things out of proportion and 'hit the nuclear button', although I did like the way in which both conflicts were resolved.
I haven't read any books by this author before, but I will definitely look out for more.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment