Take A Look At Me Now

Synopsis

How far would you go to make a new start? Heart-warming and romantic, Take a Look at Me Now will make you laugh, cry and cheer Nell on from start to finish.

What a difference a day makes…

Nell Sullivan has always been known as ‘Miss Five-Year Plan’. But when she finds herself jobless and newly single on the same day, Nell decides it is time to stop planning and start taking chances.

Nell blows her redundancy cheque on a trip of lifetime to a place where anything is possible – San Francisco. 

There she meets a host of colourful characters, including the intriguing and gorgeous Max. Very soon the city begins to feel like Nell’s second home.

But when it’s time to return to London, will she leave the ‘new Nell’ behind? And can the magic of San Francisco continue to sparkle thousands of miles away?

Review: Can't Let Go

Synopsis

Grace thought she had it all- a successful business in New York and a long term relationship with Mitchell Price, most eligible bachelor and co-owner of her business. 

Everything comes to a crashing halt when Mitchell discovers a positive pregnancy test he believes belongs to Grace. When Mitchell reveals that he knows about family secrets Grace has gone to great lengths to keep hidden it irreparably damages their relationship. 

A year later a tragic accident leaves Grace the sole guardian of her seven month old niece and turns her ordered life into chaos. Despite wanting to keep him at arm’s length, Grace is forced to accept help from the only man she’s ever loved and doesn’t know if she can trust.

Quick Thoughts

I didn't hate this book. I wasn't blown away by it either. It is a mixture of Mills and Boon and Fifty Shades without the sex. It is very underwhelming. At least with Fifty Shades there was an element of surprise, this book is ridiculous. It centers around Grace and Mitchell, a pair of lovers who are torn apart by secrets.

The author has potential, there were snippets where the story worked however majority of the book fails to entertain. It is neither funny nor is it gripping. 

Review: Sex Lessons

Synopsis

Straight-talking city trader James Kennedy has a problem. He's a flop in the bedroom. When his latest romance hits the buffers, James reaches the end of his tether. 

To make matters worse, his new bombshell of a boss might just be interested. What he really needs is someone to show him how to be a Don Juan between the sheets. To teach him where he's going wrong. But who?

Sex Lessons is a frank but humorous tale about one man's extra-curricular inactivity.

Review

James Kennedy is smart, rich and has great job, what could possibly be wrong with his life?

Well, he can't get it up. He suffers from every man's worst nightmare: erectile dysfunction.

He's traumatized by his first sexual experiences which causes him to suffer from impotency. To cure this problem without resorting to viagra, he hires a stripper to teach him how to get it and how to stay up in order to impress the new girl at work, Lauren. I first met Lauren in Three Way and to be honest she was a bit of a b*tch. She may be beautiful however, she comes with a headache, she is self centered, mysterious but inevitably a complete failure when it comes to relationship. In Sex Lessons she more or less the kind of girl every man dreams of, great body, sassy and mysterious. James predictably falls for her and after getting sex lessons from a stripper he attempts to impress her with his newly found prowess in the bedroom.

Sex lessons is a nice journey into the male brain. I enjoyed it so much I spent an entire day immersed in its brilliance. Grant is honest in his portrayal of a confident man living with a crippling and embarrassing illness. There are some sexual scenes as would be expected from a book about sex but they are not crude no are they very prim.

I should apologize to the man standing behind me on the tube who saw the title of my book and cringed profusely.I wanted to explain that sex lessons isn't a self help book on how to have sex but unfortunately he wouldn't look me in the eye. I would have recommended that he reads Sex Lessons as it is funny and extremely entertaining.  

Review: Father Found Daddy School

Synopsis

Jamie McCoy is the ultimate guy: thirty years old, carefree and professionally successful as the writer of a nationally syndicated humor column called “Guy Stuff.” Nine and a half months ago, he spent a week basking on the beach in Eluthera and indulging in a fling with a woman at the resort. Never did he expect to find the unplanned result of that fling—a healthy, wailing baby named Samantha—strapped into a car seat on his back porch, along with a suitcase full of diapers and infant apparel and a note informing Jamie that he’s her father. 

Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. But first things first. He’s never fed a baby or changed a diaper in his life. He doesn’t own a crib or a stroller. In a panic, he phones the nearest hospital, where neonatal nurse Allison Winslow takes his call and tells him about a class she teaches called the Daddy School. 

Classes on how to be a dad are exactly what Jamie needs. But when he attends his first class and sees the tall, earnest, amazingly beautiful and even more amazingly competent Allison, he realizes that he might just need more from her than her lectures on how to hold a baby.  Jamie’s efforts to be a father to this precious baby touch Allison. His sense of humor amuses her. His striking good looks turn her on. But how can she trust the sort of guy who’d sleep with a stranger on vacation, without giving a thought to the consequences? How can she give her heart to such a reckless man?

Quick Thoughts

This book is awful. It is so bad I felt my brain start to melt towards the end.

The book centers around Jamie, a single, newly turned thirty year old man who wakes up one morning and finds a baby on his porch.  Jamie joins Daddy school because he is incompetent (as the author keeps repeating), falls in love with the teacher and they live happily ever after. Yawn.

Okay, to be fair this is not meant to be a serious read, it is meant to be easy and fun. It was neither fun nor easy.. I struggled to get through the first half and soon after got bored and skipped to the end. I was not impressed. 

Unlike A Virgin

Synopsis

Is Gracie in love for the very first time?

You know that bit in The X Factor, when the singer tells everyone about the rocky road they travelled to pursue their dream? Well, that’s Gracie Flowers’ story.

Gracie is very focused for a woman of almost twenty-six. Her favourite book is ‘The 5-Year Plan: Making the Most of Your Life’. And her five-year plan is going very well. That is, until she is usurped from her big promotion by a handsome, posh idiot; she is dumped by her boyfriend; and discovers her loopy mother is facing bankruptcy.

Hormones awry and ice cream over-ordered, a dream Gracie thought she’d buried ten years ago starts to resurface. A dream that reminds her of the girl she used to be and everything she wanted to become.

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Review: Looking For Alaska

Synopsis

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words – and tired of his safe, boring and rather lonely life at home. He leaves for boarding school filled with cautious optimism, to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps."

 Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another.

Review

Firstly I should start off by saying I haven't read a young adult book since I was a young adult. However I was drawn to Looking for Alaska after this paragraph on Goodread, it summed up so many emotions I felt as teenager. 

 "No," she said, and I couldn't tell at first whether she was reading my kiss-obsessed mind or responding to herself out loud. She turned away from me, and softly, maybe to herself, said, 

"Jesus, I'm not going to be one of those people who sits around talking about what they're gonna do. I'm just going to do it. Imagining the future is  a kind of nostalgia."

 "Huh?" I asked.

 "You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome  it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present."

John Green is a fantastic author. Looking For Alaska shows off his exceptional skills as a story teller and observer of life. Looking For Alaska is a coming of age story about Pugde, a forlorn, sensitive teenager at a Culver Creek Preparatory High School in Alabama. On his first day at Culver Creek,  he meets his roommate (the colonel) and Alaska, another student on campus. 

Pugde, the colonel and Alaska as well as a group of friends get into life at Culver Creek, the group dynamics change as Pudge falls helplessly in love with Alaska who is the most popular girl in school, she is confident, beautiful with self awareness.  However behind that cool exterior lies a damaged young girl in search of direction. Green is very good at exploring teen emotions and dealing with these emotions with rawness and sensitivity.  He explores themes that are transcendent of all ages, love and death.  This book is about identity more than anything else, the search for answers and the meaning of life. Pugde is at the moment in his life where the smallest of incidents could alter his life. He is susceptible to change and as a result a great tool to use when searching for answers. 

Looking For Alaska is a captivating, charming read littered with humorous moments.  

White Lies

Synopsis

Imagine standing in line at Harvey Nichols waiting to buy the most gorgeous silk Gucci dress. The only minor problem? You can’t afford it, it's a size smaller than you are, and you have absolutely no place to wear it. 

Meet Natalie Flemming: a twenty-something woman working in London for a fabulous shoe-designing firm, but the only thing they let her touch is the company’s tax forms. She has decided to give fate a vacation and takes the task of finding the man of her dreams (or Johnny Depp if he would just return her calls...) into her own hands. 

She craves adventure, spontaneity, passion- or will just settle for a decent date.

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Review: This Child of Mine

Synopsis

Sophie is a happy 18-year-old living in London with Anna, her Irish mother. Anna has devoted her life to Sophie. It may be just the two of them but Anna has more than enough love to give. Sophie has everything she could ever need.

Laura is a not-so-happy artist. She too has a daughter, Mandy. But Laura is haunted by the loss of her first child, Jody. Happy-go-lucky as she is, Mandy lives in Jody's shadow and wonders why her mother can never let go.

Both mothers carry secrets and cannot forget the day their paths crossed. But a chance discovery is about to bring everything into the open and mothers and daughters, love and lies, past and future, will spectacularly collide.

Review

Would you take another woman's child to save their life?

Initially my answer was straightforward. No, I wouldn't take another woman's child. However whilst reading this book, the story of Amanda Hutton who starved her child to death came to light and I was left wondering whether if I had the chance to save the child's life I would taken it. How does an author tell a such a story without condemning or passing judgement.

This Child of Mine attempts to discuss this issue by building a complex story of two mothers from different backgrounds whose lives collide with explosive consequences.  At the beginning of the book we learn that both women are pregnant however unlike Anna, an Iris school teacher who wishes for a child and see the pregnancy as her only way of having a child,  Laura, a teenager sees hers as an hindrance on her social life. When Anna miscarriages, she decided to decides to move away from her small town and start afresh. On board a ship to London she sees Laura and her child Jody who is neglected and abandoned by intoxicated mother. What ensues is a tale of love, loss and forgivness.

I sympathized with Anna the most because of her struggle to have a child whereas Laura who has a child neglects hers and see her as a burden. As the story developed my dislike for Laura grew, she is as self-centered as a teenager as well as an adult. Laura and Anna are relatable, believable and genuine as characters. Sinead Moriarty, an Irish author handles the matter with sensitivity and humor.She reminds me of Jodi Picoult except that where Picoult lacks in humor, Moriarty exceeds.  This Child of Mind is insightful without hinging or distorting the topic with its careful and thoughtful exploration of a tough subject. 

Review: Three Way

Synopsis

TV news producer Ollie Hayward needs to get over his ex. Like right now.

When his editor sends him to interview a beautiful city trader, his luck might just have changed....

Then an old school friend shows up on Ollie's doorstep and things get...complicated.

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Quick Thoughts

It's fair enough to assume that I might be in love with Ollie Haywand.

Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, oi, oi, oi (sorry)

Once in a while,  a fictitious man comes into my life and sweeps me off my feet and Ollie Haywand swept me off my feet. He is funny, charming and utterly clueless when it comes to women. I did not expect this book to any good since it was free however, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I connected with Ollie, the lovable but unfortunate twenty something with more females around him than George Clooney.

This is a hilarious read with humiliating moments, idiotic boyfriends,an extremely beautiful woman and a poo on  the floor. This is worth a read for anyone looking for a light and entertaining read.Grant's writing reminds me of Mike Gayle with a hint of Nick Spalding, two of my favorite authors. I would highly recommend this read to anyone looking for a funny, charming read.

Excerpt 

"Do you want to see my tits?" 

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Ash, what the fuck?"

"I'm just saying."

"I know what you're saying."

"So?"

"What about Gabriel?"

"He's seen them?."

"Ashley."

"It's a simple question, Ollie. Yes or no?"

Yes or no. Yes, life goes one way, no life goes another.  I'm not sure key life moments should necessarily hang around questions like. "Do you want to see my tits?"...

Review: Every Seventh Wave

Synopsis

Have you ever just clicked with someone? 

Emmi and Leo met, fell in love and broke up via e-mail. After a year of silence, they find themselves in contact once more. Yet Emmi is still married to Bernhard, and Leo is just back from Boston with Pamela, his American girlfriend.

As the e-mails grow increasingly passionate, Emmi and Leo are faced with a difficult decision: could their romance survive the transition from digital to actual, or is it the distance that is keeping them together?


Review

Will they? Won't they? Will they? No they won't...Oh wait may they will...Oh wait...hold on... I spoke too soon..

The will won't they conundrum, probably the most used devise in romance. It becomes weary in the wrong hands, however with Glattauer at the helm, the device works by creating atmosphere and intensity. Every Seventh Wave could have been repetitive and mind numbing, on the contrary it is bold, creative and credible in its build up to the finale.  This is the sequel to Love Virtually which was triumphant read, fully of surprises all conducted via email. This is a story about people; Emmi and Leo who meet by accident via email and develop a virtual relationship which intensifies as the book develops.At the end of Love Virtually Leo leaves Germany for Boston and the reader is left with no clue as to whether these two will ever get together.  Every Seventh Wave carries on a few months where Leo comes back to home from Boston.

These two are perfect for each other in every way except for the fact that Emmi has a husband and Leo has a girlfriend. As the book develops they start to question what they mean to each other and most importantly if they do mean something what is that something. As I read Every Seventh Wave, I was able to connect with the sense of not knowing, the uncertainty of their relationships like most things in life became frustrating, i wanted to know right there and then, I didn't want the complication, or the family, I wanted the two characters to come in an explosive end with no complications.

This book was tedious to read at times, the not knowing started to frustrate me, the emails were getting longer as both characters despaired and the longer they got, the more tedious it was reading them. However Glattauer brings it back at the end with his punchy one liners and funny anecdotes. I think of this book as a packet of Pringles, once opened it must be consumed in one sitting. It is impossible to put down this book, even with long emails, this book has a tremendous pull that draws the reader deeper and deeper as the characters complicate the situation even more. Glattauer rivals Gayle or dare I say if they were to battle it, Glattauer would win by a small margin. Glattauer reminds me of a younger Mike Gayle before he published the truly awful Brand New Friend.

Every Seventh Wave is a fantastic read, well crafted and superbly written.