Monthly Archives: November 2013

The Castaways – Elin Hilderbrand

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What to expect:

They hadn’t known, then, what was coming. They didn’t know about September 11th, they didn’t know about miscarriages and love affairs, they didn’t know about a girl named April Peck. They didn’t know they were going to die. Back then, they had been happy.’ From the outside, the close-knit circle of friends calling themselves ‘the Castaways’ share an idyllic lifestyle on the charming island of Nantucket, blessed with money, children, beauty and love. But when Tess and Greg are killed in a tragic boating accident, orphaning their seven-year-old twins, it sends devastating shockwaves through the rest of the group. As the friends grieve, the truth behind their relationships gradually begins to emerge in a chain of staggering revelations. And for the first time they are forced to ask the hardest of questions. Can you live without the person who made you whole? And how do you mourn for a secret lover and a relationship nobody knew existed? An utterly absorbing novel exploring the tangle of secrets and lies that can lurk beneath even the closest of relationships …

Full disclosure: This is NOT a frothy read- but if you fancy something different, it’s gripping, and it’s a bargain (at current prices anyway). So, on with a mini-review.

The format works well, beginning with the accident, then offering chapters from the perspective of the other 6 castaways, in rotation. In this manner the story is gradually spilled with evenly paced revelations along the way. Events leading up to the accidents intermingle with the aftermath; cause and effect changing all the characters. The leads vary in age through their thirties and forties and greatly differ in personalities too, from the staid police chief to the young, kindly Tess. As we go along secrets are revealed- love triangles, temptation, loss, drug use, mental health, how can they get past all this and still be the group they used to be?

The threads intertwine beautifully and reveal more about the accident and more about who they all really are. It’s not hard to care about the characters, regardless of what they’ve done. It’s so well crafted and readable you’ll devour it in no time- although it’s longer than your average frothy read so something to get your teeth into. Lastly, the book also serves as an ode to Nantucket, which sounds like a lovely picturesque island.

Frothy Ranking: 4/5 cocktails.

Can be obtained from:

UK: Amazon for 99p.

US: Amazon for $6.15, or $7.99 on kobobooks.

The Love Of Her Life – Harriet Evans

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What to expect:

Kate Miller re-made herself from a geeky teenager into the image of modern woman, with a career in glossy magazines, a wedding to plan and a flatmate who was her best friend. Then it all fell apart – spectacularly, painfully and forever.
Ever since, she’s hidden in New York, working as a dogsbody for a literary agency. But when her father becomes ill, she has to return to London and face everything she left behind.
She spends time with her upstairs neighbour, Mr Allan, an elderly widower, taking long walks along London’s canals and through leafy streets. And she visits her adored but demanding father. But eventually she has to face her friends – Zoe, Francesca and Mac – the friends who are bound together with her forever, as a result of one day when life changed for all of them.
Mac is the man she thought was the love of her life. Now they don’t speak. Can Kate pick up the pieces and allow herself to love her life again?

Kooks for your Kindle?– All the characters mean business- no kooky light relief here, although Kate’s mum is a delight, living a bohemian sociable life in New York with her musical second husband. Neighbour and recent widower Mr Allen has some interesting friends from his former career as a musician- just as Kate’s Dad and step father still are. She has a daddy-type. Kate’s girlfriends are all tough women who know who they are and Zoe’s story is particularly compelling.

The Bella-Swan-Pathetically-Self-Sacrificing-Factor– We don’t know why Kate is so despondent and pessimistic until a good way through the book, so it’s hard to empathise for a while. She’s hiding from life, and once we eventually find out why, it’s understandable, but the self-sacrificing is hard to take. I suspect the title refers to Kate learning to love her life again, not a man, but it is also time for Kate to feel like she deserves love again.

Painting a Picture for your Paperback?– There’s very much a transatlantic theme here, with Kate’s Texan ex and her stepfather both being American, as well as Kate and her close friend both going to work in New York City.

Evaluation of your eBook?– This was an uneven read, the slow start generated more questions than answers. It got gripping in the middle with some good reveals, but the ending felt a little rushed. The problem with keeping up the suspense and mystery for so long is that it makes Kate harder to like- she seems ungrateful and cold. Of course this isn’t the whole story, so if you can hang in there it’s worth it in the long run.

Frothy Ranking: 3/5 cocktails.

Can be obtained from:

UK: Amazon for £5.29, although I recently got it for £1.99 so click the price for the latest.

US: Amazon for $10.38 or $8.29 on kobobooks.

Faking It – Elisa Lorello

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What to expect:
After breaking off her engagement, thirty-something writing professor Andi Cutrone abandons New England for her native Long Island to focus on her career and start over. When she meets Devin at a cocktail party, the sight of an honest-to-goodness male escort shocks her—and fascinates her more than a little. Months later, Andi impulsively calls Devin. Over cheesecake in Brooklyn, she offers him a proposition: he will teach her how to be a better lover, and in return, she will give him writing lessons. He agrees, and together they embark upon an intense partnership that proves to be as instructive as it is arousing. For in the midst of lessons in rhetorical theory and foreplay, Andi and Devin delve into deeper questions about truth, beauty, and self, gradually coming face-to-face with the issues at the core of their emotional limitations. Smart, witty, and introspective, Faking It is an engrossing novel about two people discovering their authentic selves.

The Bella-Swan-Pathetically-Self-Sacrificing-Factor– Andi has problems with intimacy but doesn’t understand their cause and how to overcome them. Fortunately she gets up the nerve to enlist the expertise of a male escort in a barter arrangement. Andi has (well justified) professional confidence; she is a very talented writing professor well on the way to academic acclaim. Her personal life contrasts this with body image issues, a difficult relationship with her mother and a sense of not belonging in either of the areas in which she’s lived. Fortunately Devin proves just the catalyst she needs to find personal freedom. Andi’s self aware enough to know that she’s going to break the rules and fall for Devin- but things don’t turn out quite as expected.

Kooks for your Kindle?– Devin is not your average frothy male, his hidden depths cause Andi to question his choice of occupation- but as with Andi, his own hang ups are holding him back. Andi’s best mate Maggie shares her love of writing, she employed her and they each push each other to improvement. Maggie’s pleasantly non-judgmental. Various other smaller characters are well thought out and varied, especially the men in Andi’s life.

Painting a Picture for your Paperback?– The setting isn’t really the focus here, the standout feature is the teaching of writing (the author passes on her own love and expertise), and the breaking down of Andi’s hang ups. I did tune out some of the more involved discussions on rhetoric and composition- i think you’d need to be educated to a higher level on the subject than I am to understand them! But that doesn’t detract from an absorbing read for all.

Nookie for your Nook?– Surprisingly chaste considering the subject matter. While it’s quite steamy, a discreet veil is drawn at delicate moments.

Evaluation of your eBook?– It’s a strange mixture of frothily readable and stylishly intelligent. I loved the unpredictability of it, especially the ending. The description above is not quite accurate, it felt more like Andi enlisted Devin to break down her psychological barriers, rather than becoming a better lover. You might imagine that a story involving the inexperienced Andi entering into a contractual relationship might head into Fifty Shades territory, but it’s way smarter, less sleazy and the heroine doesn’t make you want to stab her in the eye. Andi is the kind of leading lady I appreciate; she has guts, confidence and enough self respect to be her own woman. It’s a fun, witty, clever, sexy and original story with surprises along the way.

Frothy Ranking: 4/5 cocktails.

Can be obtained from:

UK: Amazon for £3.49, although I recently got it on special for 99p.

US: Amazon for $2.99.

Christmas Carol – Michele Gorman

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What to expect:
One winter wedding, two happy couples, three ex-boyfriends. And a very uncomfortable weekend.

Carol hates Christmas. Being recently dumped, she’s not crazy about weddings either. So her sister Marley’s nuptials, over the Christmas weekend, are making her positively Scrooge-like. When she arrives for the weekend at the stately home in rural Scotland to find her three ex-boyfriends in attendance, Carol has no choice but to face her ghosts to discover what really happened in those relationships, learning a lot about herself in the process. As the snow falls outside and the fire crackles in the hearth, might one of the wedding guests become the harbinger of Christmases to come?

Just a mini-review for this one, as it’s a small novella. It feels a little early to be featuring christmas books, but this has far more of a wedding theme than Christmas. Written by the talented author of Bella Summer Takes a Chance, it tells the short tale of Carol attending her sister’s big fat Christmassy wedding in a Scottish blizzard, while facing her 3 ghosts of boyfriends past. A surprising amount of backstory and lead character development are squeezed into this brief read, with some interesting smaller characters and a delightful granny. Carol is somewhat scrooge-like in her work obsessiveness and her neglect of her family, but remote Scotland in bad weather has its own way of dealing with Blackberry addiction. It’s a shame the book was so short- it felt like it had the legs to be developed into a full size frothy read. Worth a peek to get you in the mood for a romantic festive season.

UK: Amazon for £1.99.

US: Amazon for $2.99.

The One Before The One – Katy Regan

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What to expect:
Caroline’s life was meant to be sorted when she made the decision to end her engagement, 3 months before the big day. With her to-do list tasks getting crossed off and her career going great guns, Caroline is sure she’s now a fully functioning adult. So when her 17 year old half-sister Lexi, arrives unexpectedly at her door, it doesn’t quite fit with her image that she’s drunk and wearing her wedding dress!

Lexi has come to stay for the summer but their relationship is strained, as Lexi is the result of their father’s infidelity. An affair that led to the divorce that destroyed Caroline’s mother and ruined her own childhood. Needless to say, Caroline is in no hurry to confess her relationship with her married lover Toby.

As the summer wears on, Caroline has decisions to make, and a life to reconsider, but surely a 17 year old can’t teach her anything about how to live well?

The Bella-Swan-Pathetically-Self-Sacrificing-Factor– Caroline is surprisingly easy to like, despite her occasionally inconsiderate behaviour and stunningly bad decision making; some of these decisions include an affair with a married man, lying to her family about her breakup with Martin, and stringing Martin along for purely selfish reasons. Caroline is an intelligent, professional, lively, attractive, thirty-something who falls into a messy spiral when her mistakes catch up with her. I often struggle with books like this where the heroine brings it all on herself, but in the second half of the book she really begins to redeem herself, thanks to her straight-talking younger sister.

Kooks for your Kindle?– Some of Caroline’s issues stem from her childhood, her father left her mother and started a second family, producing her younger sister Lexi when Caroline was 15 and feeling abandoned. Caroline’s bitter mother still bears quite a grudge years later, while her father and his second wife are born-again hippies. Martin is an old man waiting to happen, and it’s not hard for everyone except Caroline to see how he still pines for her. Toby is the married man, he puts on such a show of normality I think there might be a touch of the sociopath there. His poor wife Rachel was lovely, and really well done. Finally Lexi, I adored. A girl with no appropriateness-filter when she talks, open and honest, she makes friends easily. Of course this also means she’s a target for those taking advantage, but she’s such a ray of sunshine she bounces back and is an inspiration.

Painting a Picture for your Paperback?– I’m not a fan of London, but books like this make it seem really nice in the summer, and the houseboat featured reminded me of The Pollyanna Plan, as did a few other aspects. If you enjoyed that you’ll probably like this too.

Nookie for your Nook?– Quite spicy, would fail the Mother-In-Law test.

Evaluation of your eBook?– Caroline’s character was a little mixed, she’s an uptight, control-freaky list-maker who claims to be the last person that would sleep with a married man, but she comes across as quite scatty and uninhibited. It’s a quintessential frothy read, girl meets boy, girl makes mistakes, things eventually get fixed in the end and she’s a better person for it. The younger sister as life-teacher theme has popped up a few times lately but this doesn’t feel unoriginal, the characters are distinctive enough to make this their own story.

Frothy Ranking: 4/5 cocktails.

Can be obtained from:

UK: Amazon for £5.29, although sometimes on special for less.

US: Not on Amazon, Kobobooks have it for $8.39.