JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Lovesick by Jean Flynn

Beth is an absolute wreck. She is certain that she has some kind of disease — a fatal one, most likely. She is also very single and quite keen on her (boss) colleague, Dr Brendan Roberts. He seems to fancy her, too — well, until The Morning After.

Beth knows it’s time to sort out her messy life, but she has no idea where to start.

Enter Shane — a slightly dishevelled forklift driver. He may not be suave or wealthy, but he does laugh at Beth’s jokes and remember how she likes her coffee. Plus, the more they hang out, the healthier she feels.

But when Shane suddenly cuts off all communication, Beth starts to think there’s no such thing as The One, and she decides to stop being slapdash and move on. Only life is never that simple, and Beth must take a chance if she hopes to find the cure to her ills.

Lovesick is a hilarious romantic comedy about taking risks and learning to let go of whatever is worrying you or holding you back.

Beth is a wonderful protagonist — she’s 26 and she’s witty, smart, sharp and she knows what’s good for her. She has a crush on her boss, but she doesn’t let it overcome her. She doesn’t get her hopes up. And after their Morning After, she doesn’t get in over her head. She is level-headed and mature. I loved reading about her in the story. At first, she’s unsure of herself and she’s quite shy. She doesn’t go for what she wants and she (in some ways) lets people walk all over her, like her sister Simone.

“I’m ready! Most days are like this. Every day, really. It would be nice to sit neatly at the dining table and eat organic bircher muesli and read the newspaper before work. I would like to carefully consider my outfit, wear fitted dresses and brooches and have my hair done properly. But calmly calmly just isn’t my style. Slapdash! is all I can manage.”

Over the course of the novel, she learns to adjust her expectations and believe in what she actually wants. Her sister is pushing her to pursue a relationship with her boss Brendan, but Beth knows something isn’t quite right. She knows that Shane is a better fit for her, despite the fact that they’re so different and his roommate is warning Beth against him. And then Shane disappears for a couple of weeks, and Beth isn’t sure what this means.

“What’s weekend Brendan like? I can’t imagine him in anything except slim-fit tailored pants and collared shirts. Does he wear skinny jeans? Bootcut and moleskins? Beige chinos? Surely not chinos. He’s only thirty-two.”

“I wouldn’t mind kissing Brendan. Or, really, just kissing someone. Brendan’s super attractive and everything, but does he take longer than me getting ready every morning? Are his teeth too white?”

Beth — and all of the other characters — are flawed in many ways. But that’s what makes them relatable, and fun to read about. This is a light romance novel for anyone looking for something not too heavy. Jean won the inaugural XO Romance Prize, so it’s easy to understand why this novel is so fun to read.

In saying that, I think the ending wrapped up a little too abruptly. We find out the reason why Shane has been avoiding Beth, and then the book finishes. It felt a little sudden to me. I would’ve liked for the resolution between Beth and Shane to be a little more in-depth rather than just one conversation. I definitely think Jean had room to expand this.

“Sometimes when I’m halfway through saying something that I think is a good joke I realise that it’s probably just weird, but then it’s too late people I’m with look at me like, What? So, I love that Shane gets when I’m not being serious (most of the time) and goes along with my bizarre conversations.”

The best part about this book is the humour. Jean had me laughing out aloud on the train all throughout the book, with hilarious one-liners and really witty character observations. I raced through this book, devouring each page and desperate to read how the story was going to progress. This is a novel I’d recommend to all the romance readers out there — it’s fun and light but it’ll also pull on your heart strings.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Lovesick
Jean Flynn
August 2017
Xoum Publishing

It’s Not Me, It’s You by Mhairi McFarlane

It’s Not Me, It’s You is a hilarious romance/chick lit novel from Mhairi McFarlane, author of Who’s That Girl?

Delia Moss isn’t quite sure what went wrong. She proposes to her boyfriend, he says yes and then he accidentally sends a message to Delia that he intended to send to his mistress. So, their relationship ends, and she needs a change. She moves to Newcastle for a PR job and lives with her best friend in the meantime. And of course, there’s a handsome journalist on the prowl threatening to expose her new boss and Delia tries to singlehandedly fend him off. All in all, this book is a jam-packed, hilarious recipe for a great romance read.

“Uncovering an affair wasn’t a one big fact headline story. It was like Metroyshka dolls, lies inside lies inside lies.”

This book is smart and funny, with characters you fall in love with and hilarious mishaps that you want to relive. Mhairi McFarlane has written another novel with comic romance and a dreamy love interest. The dialogue is witty and sarcastic and the book is laugh-out-loud funny.

“Ann’s policing of the office fridge was frightening. Despite being post-menopausal, she decanted her semi-skimmed into a plain container and labelled it ‘BREAST MILK’ to ward off thieves.”

There’s something in this book that I’m sure all readers can relate to – what do you do when the rug gets pulled out from under you? This is for all readers who’ve been suddenly dumped, or fired, or evicted. It’s for those of us who may need a little escape from the world right now – something to laugh at and giggle over. The characters are three dimensional and real, and the situations realistic.

“One night with you and he’s turned into a love-letter writer. You must have an incredible pelvic floor.”

I found my attention dropping off in the middle of the book. I felt like the book was about 100 pages too long and I couldn’t see where the story was going. The romance interested me and I persevered in order to find out what happens, but the storyline with Delia’s PR job and its complications are perhaps not strong enough to keep the ‘occasional reader’ interested. I soldiered on because it’s Mhairi McFarlane and I knew it’d have a satisfying conclusion, but I it was a real effort during those middle chapters.

It’s Not Me, It’s You is about picking yourself up after some hardships. It’s about taking that necessary time out to figure out what you really want and what you really need, and then going for it. It may take Delia a while to figure that out, but she does, and it’s uplifting and enjoyable for the reader.

I recommend this book to romantic fiction lovers, and to fans of chick lit. This is a feel-good book full of hilarity and heart. It’s one of those stories where you know it’s going to end up alright, like a Disney movie or a Hollywood rom-com.

It’s Not Me, It’s You
Mhairi McFarlane
November 2014
HarperCollins Publishers

Meet Me At Beachcomber Bay by Jill Mansell

Meet Me At Beachcomber Bay
Jill Mansell
January 2017
Hachette Publishers

I had never read any Jill Mansell before picking up this book, and now I’m desperate to read the rest of her backlist! Meet Me At Beachcomber Bay is a romantic and hilarious novel about a group of people living in St Carys, Cornwall.

The novel opens with Clemency meeting a man on a plane, and instantly having a connection with him. She gives him her number, but he reveals that he’s married and hurries off when they land. She’s disappointed and a bit confused, but she moves on.

Three years later, Clemency is still single and meets her stepsister’s new boyfriend Sam. The same Sam who sat next to her on that flight three years earlier. Drama ensues. Clemency’s colleague Ronan is in love with a girl in town, but she wants nothing to do with him and he feels helpless. Bella seems to have the perfect boyfriend, but something isn’t quite right and she’s not sure what it is. And then there is also Marina, an artist, who is harbouring a secret of her own that she’s struggling to keep to herself anymore.

Over the course of the novel, the characters cross paths and their intertwined lives start to unravel and secrets are revealed.

St Carys definitely has that isolated, closed off environment that you get with beachside romances. Everyone knows everyone and people run into each other on the street, and gossip is exchanged in coffee shops and there’s way too much drama for such a small place. Jill Mansell has done a great job of entertaining her reader with three dimensional, relatable characters. All of the characters are flawed in some way, but they’re still all likeable. Some of the situations that happen in the book could happen to people in real life, so readers will definitely feel like parts of this plot are realistic.

Every chapter is told from a different perspective, which allows for backstory to be woven in and for the different personalities to be unveiled. I liked the alternate point of views in the book, and felt that Jill really crafted her characters carefully so that they all felt different and their voices were illustrated really clearly in their respective chapters.

There was only one thing that bothered me about this novel. It all seemed easy. The tension between the characters seemed to blow over awfully quickly, and any issues that you thought would be catastrophic actually seemed to turn out fine. I don’t want to give away spoilers, but at the end of the novel, everything seemed to work out just perfectly for pretty much all of the characters. And Jill had set up this novel with a lot of conflict, issues and secrets, and yet it all resolved with happiness and ease?

This novel is definitely for the romantic readers out there. It’s sweet, heartwarming and a quick read. For those that love reading about soulmates and happy endings, this is the perfect novel for you.

Thank you to Hachette Publishers for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard by Robert Bryndza

Coco Pinchard was never a single thirty-something. She married young, had a son, and put her dream to be a writer on hold. Now her first novel is published. Husband Daniel has greyed nicely into a silver fox, and son Rosencrantz is grown up. It should be time to enjoy life. That is, until the annual family Christmas when her hideous mother-in-law Ethel comes to stay, and Coco opens her gift from Daniel. It’s not the jewellery she chose, but an iPhone. This marks the start of Daniel’s mid-life crisis and she catches him in bed with a younger woman.

The iPhone becomes a confessional of sorts, through emails to her friends Chris, an ageing trustafarian and Marika a slightly alcoholic schoolteacher. Coco documents her seemingly endless (and often entertaining!) run of bad luck. Then she meets the hunky Adam and she’s back in the world of dating as a single forty-something…

This book is well-written and engaging, and the book maintains the reader’s interest (which is hard to do when the book is made up entirely of emails). It does take a bit to familiarise yourself with the characters in the story – they don’t have common names (*cough* Rosencrantz *cough*) and it takes a bit to warm up to them.

I do think the ‘trigger’ – Coco finding Daniel in bed with someone else – needs to happen sooner in the story. It takes a little too long to get there, and the reader is left wondering, ‘so what is going to happen in this story?’ for the first 25 pages. The best piece of writing advice I’ve ever been given is ‘start on the day that’s different’. This story needs to start a little closer to the day when Coco finds out Daniel is cheating, so that the reader is engaged from the start.

The dialogue is well written and Coco’s life is a strong reminder of Bridget Jones’ Diary. Although sometimes things happen to Coco that seem a little farfetched and even if it happened to Bridget Jones, it’d be a little unbelievable. Robert has written this novel well, and Coco’s voice is spot on for a woman her age. The plot is well-paced (although at times a little slow moving) and events seem to unfold in a natural, believable manner.

My Score: 7/10