prettylittlewriter

This was a great read! 

My first Beth O’Leary novel, I was hooked instantly and was desperate to find out why Addie and Dylan had broken up, and why they seemed to hate each other but also still be completely in love with each other!

We dive straight into the drama with the car accident happening almost instantly in the first chapter, so I knew we were in for an interesting read from the get go!

Addie is a great character, I really liked her personality, bubbly and kind, but also incredibly strong-willed and determined. Her bond with her sister Deb was lovely, and I really enjoyed seeing them together and how protective they both were of each other.

I was unsure of Dylan at first, sure he’d done something terrible to split them up, but then we get snippets of information (mainly via his friend Marcus) that is may have even been Addie that caused the split). I also thought Dylan was a bit pompous at first too, with his poetry writing and the fact he was unsure what to do with his life and just living off of Daddy’s money.

Marcus, Dylan’s best friend, was an arsehole. Entitled and a bit of a letch, he was absolutely awful towards Addie and so manipulative with Dylan. I saw the reason for his dislike of Addie coming from the offset; it was the only ‘reasonable’ explanation, although it was still pathetic of him.

My favourite character was actually Rodney for a while, a random guy they’d picked up from the Wedding Group chat to drive up to the wedding with them. I thought he was absolutely hilarious and I really did laugh out loud at some of the things he said (my favourite part was when he thought Deb had drowned!).

I liked that Beth switched from the past to the present throughout, letting us see what happened in the past to get Addie and Dylan to where they were in the present. They had an awful lot of communication issues, and most of it I would put down to how much control Dylan allows Marcus to have on him, everything he seems to do is with Marcus in mind.

The main issue that attributed to their split was infuriating, a massive misunderstanding again orchestrated by Marcus, that if he wasn’t involved, would have been a tender moment between Dylan and Addie as I’m sure he would have comforted her. It was just incredibly heart-breaking for Addie, and it infuriated me how easily led Dylan was.

I was pleased with the outcome of the story, and really enjoyed the wedding scenes, especially the parts that involved Rodney (they were hilarious!).  

I’m now ready to go away and read the rest of Beth’s novels, as I really thoroughly enjoyed this one!

4/5 stars

This book was the loveliest celebration of life and of death wrapped in one.

Our lovely MC Florence has her fair share of heartbreak in this novel, from losing her father, to her vile ex who stole her life and memories, and then to top it off, her new editor who had potential to be something more.

After the shit meeting Florence has with her new editor regarding the half-finished manuscript, she goes on a night out with her best friend Rose, and she ends up bumping into her ex who destroyed her belief in romance, and then her new editor Benji ends up in front of her too! Just when you think she’s going to perhaps find her love for romance again after a little smooch with Benji, she gets an earth shattering call from her mum.

Upon returning to her hometown after her Father’s death, Florence has some figuring out to do, mainly in the way of what the hell she’s going to do about this half completed manuscript she needs to finish for Anne Nichols, the author she is ghost writing for. As planning her Father’s funeral gets underway (he has some very specific instructions for it, including Elvis!) editor Benji rocks up to cause even more chaos.

Ghost Benji isn’t sure why he’s still around, and what unfinished business he may have, and Florence believes it’s to help her finish the manuscript, but as she has no motivation for completing it at the present moment, Benji is just there to help her through this incredibly difficult time, and he becomes a source of comfort for Florence quite quickly.

I love that both Florence and her Father had the gift of being able to see and communicate with ghosts, it was a really special bond between them, but I must admit I was waiting for her Father to also pop up at some point as a ghost to offer her some Fatherly advice.

I managed to guess the twist to this story quite early on, as I picked up on something that best friend Rose, DIDN’T say, along with a couple of other hints from Poston about it, which I really enjoyed seeing play out. The only thing that upset me a little was how late on in the novel that this happens, as I would have liked more scenes from ‘after’ between Florence and Ben.

The relationship between Florence & Ben was the sweetest development. With Ben being a ghost, it was quite heart-breaking watching them both start to fall for each other, when they knew they couldn’t ever really be together, even if Ben managed to stick around as a ghost (although it didn’t stop them from having a couple of very sexy encounters; Ben certainly has a way with words!). Although they knew they couldn’t be together properly, they were both there for each other in the best ways they could be, especially Ben for Florence, as he became a beacon of light for her whilst she was wading through the depths of despair surrounding her Father’s death.

Florence’s ex Lee was the most infuriating character ever. I HATED him for destroying so much of her life, including her belief that she would ever find love again. So seeing his novel based on her life being published almost led me to throwing the book across the room a few times! I really wanted karma to come along and bite him in the ass.

Seeing Florence come back together with her remaining family was lovely, her relationship with her sister albeit complicated, was filled with so much love, that it was nice to see them find their way back to each other. The dynamics of the family were very different, with them also basically living and breathing death due to running a funeral home, it was nice to see them celebrating life in different ways, including dancing around the morgue to her Father’s favourite CD. It was a breath of fresh air.

There was a lot of love within the story, not just between Florence and Ben and her family, but also from friends around her. Although she had been away from her hometown for many years, the relationships she had with certain people in the town, including Dana and their partner John, were still very much in play, with some lovely interactions between them.

I also love that the Mayor was a dog! This was a very cute addition to the story.

There were quite a few pop culture name drops within the story (other authors mainly) and also my fav Taylor Swift, which I also really enjoyed.

This review is probably very scatty, I’m struggling to cohesively put one together as I just have so many random thoughts about it, but overall I really did love it and would highly recommend it to anyone that loves a rom-com with a difference. The only reason I’m not rating this 5/5 stars is I just wish the resolution of the story happened sooner, so we had a few more interactions between Florence & Ben afterwards.

4/5 stars

 Synopsis
‘Bee Hobbes (aka Bianca Von Honey) has a successful career as a plus-size adult film star. With a huge following and two supportive moms, Bee couldn’t ask for more. But when Bee’s favorite producer casts her to star in a Christmas movie he’s making for the squeaky-clean Hope Channel, Bee’s career is about to take a more family-friendly direction.

This was an unexpected read. I picked it up seeing the gorgeous and cutesy cover, thinking it was going to be the perfect romcom for the holiday season. And then I read the blurb. Pornstars. It contains pornstars.

Now, there’s absolutely NOTHING wrong with pornstars or books about pornstars, it was just NOT what I expected from the cover at all!

The storyline itself is actually very well done and a refreshing take on the adult industry, showcasing that adult film actors are real people after all, with real feelings. There was a lot of body positivity too, which I thought was wonderful. The MC Bee being plus size is very inspiring, and I loved that although they touched upon her having a lot of assumptions about her and a lot a body-shaming too, her size wasn’t mentioned that often. For example, during the sex scenes with Nolan, there was no mention of her size whatsoever, which is how it should be. Bigger women are women at the end of the day, and size shouldn’t matter. (I’ve seen a couple of reviews on goodreads stating they mentioned the plus size stuff too often, but I don’t agree).

Nolan is a lovely character, a real sweetheart just trying to do his best for his family. Although he had a wild side when he was younger, and in boyband INK, it seems it was all just normal young guy stuff that he got himself into, and he was still a good guy throughout (the Duluth scandal truth came out and proves this).

I did however, think that the mention of him being bi-sexual quite a lot wasn’t needed. It was often mentioned in specific terms that he was bi, whereas it could have just been a simple mention of a hook up with certain people (which may or may not have included his former band members).

For a book that is about the adult industry, there actually wasn’t a lot of sex involved. There were a couple of wonderful sex scenes between Bee and Nolan, but it definitely wasn’t an overload of sexy moments, which I had expectations for after reading the blurb.

I was happy with the outcome of the novel, and I did enjoy the read and the characters, however, I will say that I didn’t feel connected to the characters that much, unlike other romcoms I’ve really enjoyed. Maybe because I’m an ordinary person, not an aspiring actress or former band member.

Overall, a very festive and romantic story, with a little sprinkling of spice, and it was enjoyable, but just didn’t give me many feels. There also wasn’t a meet cute, so the title is a little misleading!

3/5 stars

 Synopsis
‘From the outside, Lorelai is an ordinary young woman with a normal life. She loves reading, she works at the local cinema and she adores living with her best friend. But she carries a painful burden, something she’s kept hidden for years; whenever she kisses someone on the lips, she sees how they are going to die. But she’s never known if she’s seeing what was always meant to be, or if her kiss is the thing that decides their destiny. And so, she hasn’t kissed anyone since she was sixteen.

I really enjoyed this book! It was such a light and easy read, with the writing quite simplistic to keep things flowing well and just makes you want to keep on reading.

I loved the characters of Lorelie and Grayson, and also her brilliant friend Joanie, who was there for her through Lorelie’s worst moments (even when she blows up at her in frustration).

Riggs is a character that had a brilliant arc, seemingly having the worst breakdown but then picking himself back up. Although I wasn’t best pleased that his assault on Lorelie was passed off by him as ‘I’m drunk, sorry’.

One thing I found incredibly frustrating was how often Lorelie chopped and changed with how she wanted to act around Grayson. One minute she couldn’t possibly let herself like him, then she was leading him on, then she was saying yes let’s try it, and then she was running away! Make up your mind woman, either see how things go, practice the kissing/predictions thing and see if things change, or don’t, and leave the poor man alone. It was infuriating! Especially when she’d had a practice run already with James, and she knew that it was possible to change what she had seen.

When she did finally kiss Grayson and she saw his death, she should have straight away told him not to get on a plane, but instead she ran away (again!) with no explanation for him, even though she’d told him she would explain things. I just found myself getting very annoyed.

I did however, also find myself chuckling away too. Carrie has created some very loveable characters, especially Joanie and Grayson, and their humour was brilliantly done.

I was also quite disappointed that nothing evolved with Lorelie’s pursuit of her dreams to be screenwriter. Carrie started off making a big deal about how much Lorelie loved to write book to movie adaptations, and that it was her dream etc, but then it never goes anywhere, and we don’t see Lorelie get anywhere near her dream.

I did also guess quite quickly that Lorelie wasn’t going to be the only one in the family that had her ‘gift’.

Overall, I did really enjoy the book, there were just some frustrating parts to it and I was a little sad that her relationship with Grayson had only just begun at the end of the novel, so we didn’t really get to see their relationship in action.

3.5/5 stars

 Synopsis
‘Two lives are about to be changed by one phone call...
When Davey misdials Hannah's number, at first they think nothing of it.
After all, Davey lives in Texas and Hannah lives in London.
But when Davey gets a job in London, their paths are sure to cross. As messaging turns to video calling, this feels like the start of something.
Weeks later, Hannah is waiting for Davey at the airport, but he never walks into Arrivals.
When Hannah finds out why, her world is turned on its head. And with their future so uncertain, each must pick up the pieces of their lives.

Will fate intervene once more to bring them together? Or will Davey always be the man that Hannah never met?’

This is such a unique romantic story that I absolutely loved throughout, and I was so invested in Davey and Hannah’s relationship from the start!

The main antagonistic storyline within this novel is quite a hard-hitting topic, and if you struggle with reading novels that surround life or death medical issues, then this may not be the book for you.

When things started to get in the way of Hannah and Davey’s romance, I was aching for things to hurry the hell up and let them be together; they were just so perfect for one another!

Hannah’s character was very relatable, I found parts of myself within her, which helped me empathise with her and the struggles she was going through throughout the book. Davey is the perfect book boyfriend, someone who you wish was a real person (or that men could at least learn from in real life!!) and I was really heartbroken for him when his life was turned upside down.

I also loved the side characters, Miranda, Paul and Joan specifically, were great additions and made me feel all warm and fuzzy that Hannah had such amazing friends and family around her.

I liked George at the beginning of the novel, when he and Hannah first started out, but then he soon starts to show his true colours (not caring about the things Hannah loves, judging her friends, judging her on what she eats!!).

The only thing I did not enjoy about this novel was the ending. It felt rushed and I really wanted a bigger and more in-depth resolution for Hannah and Davey, they'd certainly earned it!

Without saying anything else that may risk spoilers, I would definitely recommend this to any romcom lovers & I look forward to reading more books from Elle! 

4/5 stars