Booklyn Girls: Angie by Gemma Burgess

I am a HUGE fan of Gemma Burgess, since she wrote A Girl Like You I was a fangirl for life. So when she announced she was writing a series of books about a group of girls living in Brooklyn trying to figure out what life, work, happiness means when you leave university, I was sold!  This was the series for me. So I devoured Brooklyn Girls: Pia when it came out in one day and then waited desperately for the next one... 

Angie's story was just as unputdownable, perhaps I even liked it more than Pia's... Devoured it on my summer flight, dreaming of holidays and when it was over wishing I had saved it or at least savoured it. But that wasn't to be. Gemma's writing and characters just pull you in and you can't leave them, you just need to keep finding out what happens next. 

I cannot recommend Angie's story enough. It is electric! The hero, is gorgeous and as a nice mix he's not necessarily the guy you expect Angie to fall for. You even get an insight into Pia's continuing  relationship and her life too. Which of course made me want to send Gemma Burgess flowers - I love when we get to keep seeing the other characters and what happens next with them!

So go, buy this book, it is so good I refuse to give away any spoilers (which probably makes this a not very good review - sorry! I really am keeping great things secret)! Absolutely the highest recommendation I can possibly give - 5 John Hughes Stars (and yes these are also just invented, but this book is so good it deserves them!). 

You Had Me At Merlot by Lisa Dickenson

You Had Me At Merlot is a book told in 4 parts, this post is going to cover all parts of the story, but hopefully without any spoilers. I did consider doing one post for every part, then realised if I did it would tell everyone the whole story and this book is too good for that!

So we start with Elle, brilliant Elle who loves to dance around her flat in high heels to Beyonce. She may be single, but she doesn't care. Elle isn't looking for a boyfriend, she actually loves her life as it is - but she might just be a little bit of a workaholic... So when her best friend Laurie begs her to come on a singles holiday to a vineyard in Tuscany she wants to refuse...but when your best friend asks you to do something you agree! It's kind of the rule...

Laurie and Elle are heading for the holiday of a lifetime, but will Laurie find love under the Tuscan sun? And will Elle really learn to relax and enjoy this little sip of paradise? Who knows maybe both girls will even find love...

You Had Me At Merlot had me absolutely spellbound. I bought the first section just to see what it was like. I wasn't sure if it being put into parts would be annoying or not...but this book surprised me and completely changed my mind. I ended up unable to stop reading, almost crying from laughter when I had to get the next parts, desperate to download them faster than ever.

Under the summer sun of London I absolutely revelled in Lisa Dickenson's world and fell completely in love with Elle and Laurie. Elle is just the kind of girl you can't help liking. She is kind, thoughtful and above all else relatable! She spends all her time focusing on work, hoping she will get noticed because of her long hours in the office, her loyalty and above all her lack of a real social life... So getting away from the stresses of real-life is just what Elle needs (even if she can't see it herself!). I have to say if someone offered me the chance to relax in Tuscany, eating warm grapes in the sun, sipping excellent wine and enjoying some absolutely perfect Italian eye candy - I would jump at the chance!

Brilliant writing, hilarious adventures and a beautiful love story! For anyone who loves modern day romances, strong independent heroines and a story that will sweep you away, look no further than Lisa Dickenson's You Had Me At Merlot. Just ensure you have access to wine, preferably red, and if at all possible some sunshine! You will be swept away in no time.

Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

Um...WOW! Seriously wow. This book was so brilliant, I could not put it down. I have been a fan of Sarah Addison Allen's for a while now, I love her magical worlds and how very real they feel. This was an astoundingly brilliant addition to her previous books (my fave being Garden Spells - but really, how can you pick just one...?) and I fell entirely in love with Lost Lake. Please, please tell me I can visit it one day!

Now onto the characters - I loved Kate, Devin and Eby so much I didn't want this book to ever end. Their world was so precious, so real, so vital I could feel it vibrating through the pages. The lake glistening in the distance, the scent of baking on the air, the atmosphere heavy with secrets, love and magic. I loved Eby best, something just gleamed out at me from the pages, from her honesty, love, fear and joy - she completed the book for me in a way I didn't expect. Kate too was absolutely wonderful, I wished I was her. Feeling lost and finding a place to be happy again, she is the centrepiece to this evocative and spellbinding story. Finding a home when your own heart is broken is the most magical theme and Sarah drew all of this together so beautifully. A magical spell woven as if just for me...and I loved it!

Lost Lake is brilliantly compelling, heart wrenchingly honest and above all peopled with characters you want to link arms and dance in the moonlight with. This is a book to read outside in nature listening to birds or wind rustling the trees, or curled up safe and warm inside while the rain lashes against the window panes. Lost Lake will stay with you long after you turn the last page and you may find yourself wishing you were jumping in your car and heading to Georgia and this wonderful place where dreams and wishes really do come true. 

I cannot wait for Sarah's next book. I just hope it comes soon! 

A Single Breath by Lucy Clarke

Now, if you haven't read my review of The Sea Sisters please do read it...if you have - keep reading, because A Single Breath is a wonderful second novel from Lucy Clarke.

Eva is on a journey to find a way to heal after the tragic death of her husband Jackson. She is lost, afraid and unsure and the only place she can think to go to, to feel close to Jackson once more is the Tasmanian island he was born. It's only too bad that his family don't seem to want her to come, that they really wish she would stay away. Because every family has secrets...

Right, I refuse to do any spoilers at all I will just tell you all about what I loved about this book... Eva's best friend is gorgeous, I love her so much, she reminded me of all my closest friends, all of the best people in your life that you can lean on. She is Eva's rock, even when she doesn't think she needs one. Then comes Jackson's brother - uh yes, he is amazing. Totally brilliant, a vibrant force you cannot ignore.

The whole island though is also just as much a character in this story. The water so blue you can see it in your minds eye as you read, the fish, the boats, the life under the waves. Every time someone dove into the water I could feel it ripple and felt so envious I wished I too could just dive into some beautiful body of water. As in The Sea Sisters the water plays a huge part and I just loved it!

This isn't just a book to make you fall in love with water or travelling (even though I now am), it is a story about discovering who you really are and Eva's journey is just so wonderful, so perfect I couldn't have asked for anything more. I suppose my only criticism is that I just didn't love the cover...but who cares when you have this book inside!?! 

I am hoping Lucy will have another book out soon, but if I have to wait until next year I will. I just know it will be worth the wait. 

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!

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

I have just finished We Were Liars about five seconds ago...I feel like I will never be able to forget it. To move on from it. This book is now a part of me that will always be there - unforgettable, wonderful, achingly awful...

Cadence Sinclair Eastman and the story of the beautiful Sinclair family will have you spellbound. A story not only for YA readers, but also adults and fans of such stories as Tigers in Red Weather. This is a book for hot summer days, the sun baking down on you as you step inside a world so unlike and like your own you will not know what to do.

This book is the book everyone should be talking about! It is lyrical, beautiful and unputdownable. Giving up hours of your life to it is not remotely regrettable! You will be captivated and awed by Lockhart's innovative storytelling and her brilliantly captured characters who breathe endless life into the book. It is a story that will change you, if only for one moment - and I urge all of you to immediately download it onto an ereader, rush to the shops and purchase a copy or just give into temptation and visit your library. This truly is a brilliant book - don't miss it!

Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Romance books are always so lovely, they have the happy ending, the beautiful heroine and, of course, a gorgeous hero to swoon over. Jenny Colgan is a master at merging the romance genre with the very delectable foodie obsession we are all under. Her Meet Me At The Cupcake Cafe was sugary, her Rosie Hopkins Sweet Shop of Dreams was delightfully sweet and The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris was full of chocolatey goodness. However, if I am going to be honest, I have to say that Rosie Hopkins was my favourite (I am not going to mention the sequel - as it just didn't work for me at all) of her most recent foodie romance. It was sweetness and light with a brilliant hero, relateable heroine and a beautiful historical romance that pulled you straight in.

So, now we have all of that sorted, let me tell you about her newest baking romance...Little Beach Street Bakery. This started out brilliantly: Polly Waterford is recovering from losing her business compounded by a bad breakup, and having to give up her home and social life all in one fell swoop. Now, she is desperate and a little scared, but when she stumbles across an affordable island in Cornwall she is able to get back to her first love...baking bread. And perhaps a little love of her own...

I loved the gorgeous descriptions of the baking process, the kneading, rising, delectable flavours Jenny threw in to make my stomach growl with hunger. My only problem with this light read was the length. It felt a little too long, a little too indulgent and by the time we find out who the hero is (yep, you guessed it, there are some options here in this little sleepy town for Polly) I was struggling to remember if I liked him or not... This is not ideal and by the end I really didn't care one way or the other - it should have ended at least 50 pages earlier! But all in all this is a lovely story for a holiday - a great book to lie on a beach with and forget about your real life - the one with tubes and buses, crowded coffee shops and worrying about money. In Jenny Colgan's delightful Cornish town all of these worries are there, but there is also bread, hot from the oven just waiting for you to spread it thick with butter or perhaps a dollop of honey...

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

I read a quote on the back of this book and knew instantly it was the book for me - 'Brilliant. Guaranteed to join The Secret History and The Virgin Suicides as one of those rare books to become a cult hit and instant classic.' - Sunday Telegraph

Two of my all time (top 10) books and if Marisha Pessl could even come close to writing a story like those two classics I knew I had to try it. Creaking open the spine of this pretty hefty and small of print novel was exhilarating. Helped by it being on a plane about to jet off for a weekend away, this book was highly anticipated. I had very high hopes and I must say they were fulfilled. My only quibble was with the ending, but really when compared to the rest of the story, the ending is almost pointless to mention.

Marisha Pessl definitely knows what she is doing with a pen/computer - she knows how to write! There were so many moments where I wished I was one of those people who highlight books, there were so many sentences, paragraphs, brilliant lines that I wanted to remember forever. I needed them, the way I need air on a daily basis and getting to read this book was as refreshing, mindblowing and terrifying as I expected. I was barely grasping onto normality by a fingernail during the week I devoured this book (work got in the way). This is a brilliant, beyond brilliant book and I urge you all to indulge your senses and give yourself up to the twisted and brilliant tale of Blue van Meer.

Here is a bit about the story - I don't want to ruin it for you, it really is too sensational to not read, so here is a little extract:

'I wrote this account one year after I'd found Hannah Dead.

I thought I'd managed to erase all traces of that night within myself.

But I was wrong.

Every night when I tried to sleep, I'd close my eyes and see her again, exactly as I found her, hanging from a pine tree by an orange electrical cord, her neck twisted like a tulip stem, her eyes seeing nothing.

Or else that was the problem. They'd seen everything.'