Any Human Heart by William Boyd

 For anyone who hasn't heard about this fabulous and entirely life-affirming book please read on! This book is for you. A life filled to the very full, a life full of love, despair, happiness, sadness, war, peace, the New York City buzz and the lower hum of London. A life not many can lay claim to, but one so inspiring you will find yourself compelled to action you would previously have scorned.

Logan Mountstuart's life is richly laid out for you. The diary-style entries bring at times something wonderfully remorseful and at others a dazzling depiction of life's endeavours. At times pretentious, at times sickeningly cringeworthy and always a challenge to accept the realities of life. For friends are not always your friends for life. Life causes rifts along the way, we morph and grow, becoming versions of ourselves - the people we once were changed and almost too distorted to be recognised. This book will make you think, it will throw into contrast your own life (now granted this is fiction!) but it will make you question your own propensity for life and all of the riches it provides. Risks are there to be taken, for you have no idea what one door will lead to.

I was recommended this book by 3 separate people. Before that I was not convinced I would enjoy it - I am a girl and this book is about a man's life, from schoolboy days to old age - but do you know what? I would definitely say this is one of the best books I've read in 2014.

This is a classic from the modern age and well deservedly so. Now do grab yourself a copy of this phenomenal book and prepare for your mind to be blown!

 

The Sea Sisters by Lucy Clarke

Did you ever read a book and the whole time you thought - this is amazing!!! 

Well that is how I felt when I read The Sea Sisters and honestly, I wouldn't change a thing. I just loved this book so much. The perfect fast-paced read that you won't be able to put down. My eyes were scanning the lines as quickly as possible. I needed (and I mean needed) to know what happened to Katie and Mia. They became my closest friends and best allies all through one book.

Katie is the one you get to know the best, or maybe she was the one I got to know better because I saw a bit of myself in her. But Mia is just as special. She is fresh, bright, a whirlwind of colour that you cannot resist liking - perhaps even loving! This is the story of two very different sisters and their journey to find out who they truly are. Katie and Mia may love each other, but they don't get each other. They aren't close even though they live together, and they have a past - like all sisters do. They know exactly how to hurt each other, because sisters always have those hidden secrets underneath it all. Lucy Clarke drew their relationship so well it leapt from the page.

Now, here is the thing that drew me immediately into the story... Mia is dead (I'm not giving away any spoilers here - promise). The police suspect a suicide. And the last words Katie and Mia spoke to each other we're harsh. Katie has the opportunity to find out the truth, because she knows her sister would never commit suicide.

Giving up her ordered life Katie heads out to follow in her travel hungry sisters footsteps. Retracing Mia's path across the world in the hopes that she will uncover the truth and prove to the world (and perhaps even to herself) that Mia is not the person the police think she is. That Katie knew her sister.

A truly spectacular summer read. Think airplane ride, pool side, cooling your sunburn in the shade with a cocktail in hand. This is the book for you. A travel companion like no other. 

See my review for Lucy's second book A Single Breath for another brilliant summer holiday read!

Austenland by Shannon Hale

 Let's talk about Austenland right now, because it is seriously good fun!

WARNING: Do not read this book if you are after a historical, Austen-type romance. This is not that book. And it is not trying to be. 

Austenland is a big breath of fresh air. Yes, we have a Mr Darcy type, a Wickham, a Mrs Bennett and Elizabeth...but these people all know they are playing a part. They are pretending to be from the Austen world we all so love, they are wearing petticoats and spending all day playing whist and learning needle point (how boring!) and basically figuring out that sometimes history is best left there, in the past. Sometimes being a modern day heroine is just as brilliant - (hello, indoor plumbing, independence, freedom to wear jeans, etc etc). This is a funny, riotous, laugh-out-loud comedy that will have chick-lit readers in stitches.

Join Jane in her quest to find her very own Mr Darcy - you will not regret it I promise!