The Never Have I Ever Club, by Mary Jayne Baker

Format: e-ARC, 326 pages

Publisher: Aria

Published: 18 June 2020

ISBN: 9781789546149

Genre: Romance, Women’s Fiction

Back cover blurb: Robyn Bloom thought Ash Barnes was the love of her life – until one day he announced he was leaving her to fly halfway across the world.

Months later, Robyn is struggling to move on – but then she has a brainwave: The Never Have I Ever Club. Her handsome next-door neighbour Will helps her bring their fellow Yorkshire villagers together for some carpe-diem-inspired fun.

From burlesque dancing to Swedish massages, everyone has plenty of bucket-list activities to try, but it doesn’t take long for Robyn to realise what – or who – her heart truly desires: Will.

There’s just one problem: he’s Ash’s twin brother.

Make that two problems: Ash is moving home… and he wants Robyn back.

My review: This was a wee delight, just what I needed as the weather grows darker and colder in my part of the world. Baker is a new author for me, but I will be seeking out her other work because she can write great characters, favours showing over telling, and the humour shines through. I started off thinking this might have been a bit of a light version of Marian Keyes’ “The Break”, but Ash running off to Australia to find himself was only really a minor subplot. I loved the club and all its characters, and Will was adorable. Any book that references the “My Lovely Horse” episode of Father Ted is okay by me.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 5/5

Amazon

Stuck with You, by Carla Burgess

Format: e-ARC, 384 pages

Publisher: HQ Digital

Published: 10 April 2017

ISBN: 9780008221553

Genre: Romance, Women’s Fiction

Back cover blurb: One lift. Two strangers. Anything could happen!

Elena thought that today would be just like any other day…until the supermarket lift jams and she realises she’s stuck.

And not just stuck in the lift. Stuck with her childhood crush, Daniel Moore, who unfortunately seems to be just as gorgeous as she remembered…

My review: A sweet wee romance with very little conflict, but when it ended I was bugged there were still some unresolved matters. The sample chapter from the next book didn’t seem to have the same characters, so that didn’t help me. When would they get to meet Patrick? Was he as sketchy as he sounded? I need to know! I liked the second-chance romance trope with Elena and Dan, but introducing Patrick and never resolving his storyline ignores the Chekhov’s gun rule. Can I petition Carla Burgess to consider a sequel?

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 3/5

Amazon

The Switch, by Beth O’Leary

Format: Audiobook ARC, narrated by Alison Steadman and Daisy Edgar-Jones (e-book 333 pages)

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Published: 18 August 2020

ISBN: 9781250751850

Genre: Women’s fiction

Back cover blurb: When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen’s house for some long-overdue rest.

Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She’d like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn’t offer many eligible gentlemen.

So they decide to try a two-month swap.

Eileen will live in London and look for love. She’ll take Leena’s flat, and learn all about casual dating, swiping right, and city neighbors. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire: Eileen’s sweet cottage and garden, her idyllic, quiet village, and her little neighborhood projects.

But stepping into one another’s shoes proves more difficult than either of them expected. Will swapping lives help Eileen and Leena find themselves…and maybe even find true love? In Beth O’Leary’s The Switch, it’s never too late to change everything….or to find yourself.

My review: This was such a fun story with an unusual pair of heroines, a burned-out Londoner grieving the death of her sister and her 79-year-old grandmother from a small village near Leeds. I really enjoyed how they were both looking for more out of life, and how much they embraced each other’s lifestyles as they initiated the swap where Leena took over her gran’s responsibilities in the village while Eileen got herself on Tinder and flatted with Leena’s friends in Shoreditch. There’s a wonderful cast of friends and neighbours, all of whom I could see clearly in my mind, and although Leena infuriated me near the end, the ending was very satisfying.

I listened to the Netgalley audiobook narrated by the wonderful Alison Steadman (Pride and Prejudice‘s Mrs Bennet) and Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People), and although I thought Steadman was probably a little young to play a 79-year-old, they were both fabulous. (The Netgalley app, though, is horrendous and I do not recommend. It kept losing my place and sending me back to the very beginning, or if I paused in the middle of a chapter it would restart from the beginning of the chapter before. Very frustrating! I hope they fix that soon.)

Beth O’Leary is an author I will now keep a keen eye out for. I’m eager to read her other work.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 5/5

Amazon

Driving Miss Crazy, by D.J. Van Oss

Format: e-ARC, 292 pages

Publisher: Blue Penny Press

Published: 16 May, 2016

ISBN: 9780692685730

Genre: Romance, Women’s Fiction

Back cover blurb: He’s got a car. She’s got places to be. If only things were that simple.

Maggie MacNally always falls short, no matter what she does. Whether it’s her career or her love life, nothing ever ends up right, and even as she tries to put her work mishaps and dating missteps behind her to forge a new life in Washington DC, she wonders: is she really heading where she wants to go, or simply following in the family footsteps?

But just as she’s considering packing it all in, an out-of-the-blue proposal from her influential grandmother offers her one last chance at success — a chance which puts her in the path of beguiling and mysterious French diplomat, Valery.

Meanwhile, diplomatic driver and widowed father Adrian Adams isn’t looking to change anything about his life, he just wants to keep his seven-year-old daughter Charlie safe and happy. The last thing on his mind is finding love again – and the last thing he expects is to suddenly lose his job. Luckily, he’s soon got a new assignment, one which brings him face to face with an overworked, stressed-out, but oddly charming Irish girl with a penchant for talking to squirrels: Maggie. It’s not long before Adrian finds himself, unwittingly, falling in love again.

Will Maggie seize the life she’s always yearned for, or be left with the pieces of yet another broken dream? And will Adrian take a second, crazy chance at love, or just play it safe? And what’s with all the squirrels?

My review: I picked this up from Netgalley because of the cute graphics on the cover and the pun in the name, and then was intrigued to find it was a sweet romance debut by a male author. However, I wasn’t really bowled over by the plot. My favourite character was Adrian’s daughter, rather than the couple themselves, and the “intrigue” at the embassy was signposted so far out that nothing came as a surprise in the end. There was a love triangle, of course, and lots of people telling Maggie what to do so she came across as a bit of a child. So overall it was just okay.

Since it was first published the cover has been redone to show a photo of a couple, and I’d have to say that I wouldn’t have picked it up at all had that been the original cover. I much prefer the cute pink and blue graphics.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 2.5/5

Amazon

The Rejected Writers’ Book Club, by Suzanne Kelman

Format: e-ARC, 261 pages

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Published: March 29, 2016

ISBN: 9781503934146

Genre: Women’s Fiction, General Fiction (Adult)

Back cover blurb: Librarian Janet Johnson is puzzled when she is invited—and practically dragged—to her first meeting of the Rejected Writers’ Book Club. This quirky group of women would much rather celebrate one another’s rejected manuscripts over cups of tea and slices of lemon cake than actually publish a book. But good friends are exactly what Janet needs after moving to the small town of Southlea Bay, Washington. Just as the ladies are about to raise a teacup to their five hundredth rejection letter, they receive bad news that could destroy one member’s reputation—and disband the group forever. To save the club, Janet joins her fellow writers on a wild road trip to San Francisco in search of the local publisher who holds the key to a long-buried secret. As they race to the finish line, they’ll face their fears—landslides, haunted houses, handsome strangers, ungrateful children—and have the time of their lives.

My review: I picked up this book purely based on the gorgeous cover, and the best way to describe its contents would be “cosy.” After a slow start, I really rather enjoyed the club’s road trip adventures, and Grace’s story at the end was lovely. The characters were all great, except Stacey, who was just a spoilt brat. I couldn’t help feeling, also, that Janet came across as much older than forty-something, especially given her husband’s favourite song was “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 4/5

Amazon

The Restaurant Critic’s Wife, by Elizabeth LaBan

Format: e-ARC, 316 pages

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Published: January 5, 2016

ISBN: 9781477817766

Genre: Women’s Fiction, General Fiction (Adult)

Back cover blurb: Lila Soto has a master’s degree that’s gathering dust, a work-obsessed husband, two kids, and lots of questions about how exactly she ended up here.

In their new city of Philadelphia, Lila’s husband, Sam, takes his job as a restaurant critic a little too seriously. To protect his professional credibility, he’s determined to remain anonymous. Soon his preoccupation with anonymity takes over their lives as he tries to limit the family’s contact with anyone who might have ties to the foodie world. Meanwhile, Lila craves adult conversation and some relief from the constraints of her homemaker role. With her patience wearing thin, she begins to question everything: her decision to get pregnant again, her break from her career, her marriage—even if leaving her ex-boyfriend was the right thing to do. As Sam becomes more and more fixated on keeping his identity secret, Lila begins to wonder if her own identity has completely disappeared—and what it will take to get it back.

My review: This is a very hard book to rate. I enjoyed the writing style – and absolutely love the cover – but the characters were very unlikeable, especially the husband. Sam was just odious, dictating that his wife couldn’t have a life, couldn’t make friends without checking if they owned a restaurant first, couldn’t even leave the house when she was going stir-crazy at home with a toddler and newborn. Lila wasn’t much better, though, biting her tongue instead of speaking up, and making some pretty irresponsible choices regarding friends and her secret job. Hazel, the three-year-old, was very obnoxious – but dare I say realistic? – as well. I found I had to keep reading to see if the whole family imploded.

It worried me that Elizabeth LaBan’s real husband was like Sam, so was glad to read in the acknowledgements that he is not. I would pity her greatly if he was, but I suspect there is a ring of truth about some of what she wrote, given the consequences some restaurants suffer from a bad review.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 3.5/5

Amazon

Everybody Rise, by Stephanie Clifford

Format: e-ARC, 384 pages

Publisher: St Martin’s Press

Published: August 18, 2015

ISBN: 9781250077172

Genre: Women’s Fiction

Back cover blurb: An instant New York Times bestseller!

Chosen as one of Summer’s Best Books by People Magazine
Featured in Time Magazine’s Summer Reading
Entertainment Weekly‘s Summer Must List
Good Housekeeping Beach Reads Feature

“A witty tale about a high-society wannabe…Little is more delicious than watching an ambitious but tragically flawed protagonist brought down – especially in a designer cocktail dress.” -The Washington Post

Everyone yearns to belong, to be part of the “in crowd,” but how far are you willing to go to be accepted? In the case of bright, funny and socially ambitious Evelyn Beegan, the answer is much too far…

At 26, Evelyn is determined to carve her own path in life and free herself from the influence of her social-climbing mother, who propelled her through prep school and onto New York’s glamorous Upper East Side. Evelyn has long felt like an outsider to her privileged peers, but when she gets a job at a social network aimed at the elite, she’s forced to embrace them.

Recruiting new members for the site, Evelyn steps into a promised land of Adirondack camps, Newport cottages and Southampton clubs thick with socialites and Wall Streeters. Despite herself, Evelyn finds the lure of belonging intoxicating, and starts trying to pass as old money herself. When her father, a crusading class-action lawyer, is indicted for bribery, Evelyn must contend with her own family’s downfall as she keeps up appearances in her new life, grasping with increasing desperation as the ground underneath her begins to give way.

My review: Got off to a very slow start and I almost gave up, but once Evelyn had ingratiated herself into high society I couldn’t put it down just waiting for the train wreck to happen. At times this read like a period piece because it’s hard to imagine people living like Jay Gatsby these days. Evelyn is not a very sympathetic character, but very few in this book are. Her mother is an exceptional piece of work even to the end, and Camilla and her cronies could be straight out of the TV show Revenge. The scene where Evelyn takes part in a rowing race is almost laugh-out-loud funny, and I can just picture it in the forthcoming movie.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 4/5

Amazon

The Confectioner’s Tale, by Laura Madeleine

Format: e-ARC, 336 pages

Publisher: Black Swan

Published: May 21, 2015

ISBN: 9781784160722

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Literature/Fiction (Adult)

Back cover blurb: At the famous Patisserie Clermont in Paris, 1909, a chance encounter with the owner’s daughter has given one young man a glimpse into a life he never knew existed: of sweet cream and melted chocolate, golden caramel and powdered sugar, of pastry light as air.

But it is not just the art of confectionery that holds him captive, and soon a forbidden love affair begins.

Almost eighty years later, an academic discovers a hidden photograph of her grandfather as a young man with two people she has never seen before. Scrawled on the back of the picture are the words ‘Forgive me’. Unable to resist the mystery behind it, she begins to unravel the story of two star-crossed lovers and one irrevocable betrayal.

Take a moment to savour an evocative, bittersweet love story that echoes through the decades – perfect for fans of Kate Morton, Rachel Hore and Victoria Hislop.

My review: When I reached the end of this book, I couldn’t help but think that Jim Stevenson deserved his years of guilt and regret for what he did to Gui and Jeanne. The details of his misdeed form the basis of this fantastic debut novel, which tells the story of Gui and Jeanne’s love in Paris in 1910, alternating with investigations into the tale in 1988 by Stevenson’s granddaughter, Petra. Petra finds an old photo and a note expressing her journalist grandfather’s apologies, and must battle the clock and his nasty biographer to solve the mystery behind them. Her chapters alternate with the story of provincial Gui du Frere, who comes to Paris to work for the railway and ends up an apprentice pastry chef at the city’s top patisserie. He falls in love with the owner’s daughter, Jeanne Clermont, but their love is a huge scandal in those class-divided times.

I absolutely loved this story and was gripped by Petra’s search to uncover the truth. She loses a lot when she devotes herself to the search, but gains a love interest and there are a quite few laughs along the way. Gui’s story is heartbreaking and I’m not sure if Petra fully uncovers the horrifying details of Jim’s betrayal, as that chapter is told from Gui’s POV. The author describes the grimy backstreets of Paris in fetid detail, and captures the delicate confections of the patisserie with the knowledge of an expert baker. I was initially attracted to this book by the deliciously beautiful cover, and the content matched it perfectly. This is a great debut and I look forward to whatever Laura Madeleine writes next. Highly recommended.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 5/5

Amazon

Techbitch, by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza

Format: e-ARC, 449 pages

Publisher: Penguin Books Australia

Published: May 27, 2015

ISBN: 9780718181666

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Literature/Fiction (Adult)

Back cover blurb: An outrageously stylish, wickedly funny novel of fashion in the digital age, Techbitch is the story of Imogen Tate, editor in chief of Glossy magazine, who finds her twentysomething former assistant Eve Morton plotting to knock Imogen off her pedestal, take over her job, and reduce the magazine, famous for its lavish 768-page September issue, into an app.

When Imogen returns to work at Glossy after six months away, she can barely recognize her own magazine. Eve, fresh out of Harvard Business School, has fired “the gray hairs,” put the managing editor in a supply closet, stopped using the landlines, and hired a bevy of manicured and questionably attired underlings who text and tweet their way through meetings. Imogen, darling of the fashion world, may have Alexander Wang and Diane von Furstenberg on speed dial, but she can’t tell Facebook from Foursquare and once got her iPhone stuck in Japanese for two days. Under Eve’s reign, Glossy is rapidly becoming a digital sweatshop—hackathons rage all night, girls who sleep get fired, and “fun” means mandatory, company-wide coordinated dances to Beyoncé. Wildly out of her depth, Imogen faces a choice—pack up her Smythson notebooks and quit, or channel her inner geek and take on Eve to save both the magazine and her career. A glittering, uproarious, sharply drawn story filled with thinly veiled fashion personalities, Techbitch is an insider’s look at the ever-changing world of fashion and a fabulous romp for our Internet-addicted age.

My review: I absolutely loved this book from start to finish. Firstly, the subject matter was right up my alley, as an ex-journalist who knows after her time out to raise children that she has been rendered seriously obsolete by new technology. In the book, Imogen is only off work for six months but returns from sick leave to find her fashion magazine has become an app. Although her job remains intact, her every move is usurped by her former assistant, Eve, back from Harvard with big plans and an even bigger ego.

Eve is one of the nastiest characters I have ever read, but I recognised her all the same. The number of times I said “yes!” to myself while reading was ridiculous. I cheered as Imogen came to grips with Twitter and Instagram and met new techie friends who didn’t consider her a dinosaur. The parallel storyline involving the cyber-bullying of Imogen’s daughter was well done, although it wasn’t too hard to figure out well before the end who the culprit was.

I laughed, I gritted my teeth, but mostly I smiled as I read. I highly recommend this book.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 5/5

Amazon

 

Stacking the Shelves #6

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Welcome back to Stacking the Shelves, a regular meme hosted by Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews. Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the latest books you have added to your shelves, physical or virtual.  This means you can include books you buy in store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course e-books! Here is my haul from this week.

Purchased from Audible

Audible‘s half-price sale continued and I just couldn’t help myself. I purchased Pop Goes the Weasel by M.J. Arlidge, Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch, The Madness Underneath and The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, Blood On Snow by Jo Nesbo, and The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire by Molly Harper. Whew!

Approved Netgalley requests

Netgalley approved my request for Single Woman Seeks Revenge by Tracy Bloom and Heat Exchange, the first of Shannon Stacey‘s new Boston Fire series. Looks good, if the cover is anything to go by!

Downloaded from public library

From the local public library, I downloaded A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray on audiobooks. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book.

Purchased from Amazon

My only other purchase this week was from Amazon, and was True Love Way by Mary Elizabeth.

Wow, that looks like heaps! Keep an eye out for my reviews of these in coming weeks. So what new books did you pick up this week? Let me know in the comments.