Book Review: Some Girls Do by Clodagh Murphy

"Claire Kennedy is NiceGirl, the anonymous author of steamy online blog 'Scenes of a Sexual Nature'. An internet sensation, she attracts the attention of Mark Bell, a hot London publisher. But when it becomes clear that Mark is interested in more than just a book deal, Claire has to act fast. Because little does Mark know that NiceGirl is a lot more experienced in the bedroom than real-life Claire Kennedy. Mark is offering Claire the life she's always dreamed of - a steady relationship, the literary world of London and a posh Highgate apartment. But when Claire hires the services of sultry sex-coach Luca to brush up on her sex skills, things get more complicated... Great sex, friendship AND love... can't a girl have it all?"

You can buy Some Girls Do as a paperback or an eBook now!

Rating: 5/5

I’ll be honest and admit that for some reason, I haven’t gotten around to reading any of Clodagh Murphy’s books so far. I don’t really know why, and so when I received a copy of her new book Some Girls Do, I was determined to finally try something by this author and gave it a go. I was intrigued by the cover, it’s very unlike any cover that Clodagh has had so far and the story sounded a bit different too! So I opened it up and started reading, and within just a few pages, I was hooked! I absolutely loved this book and here’s why you really should read it!

Claire lives with her elderly mother, looking after her now she has got ill. She works in a bookshop, and it seems to those who know her that Claire has a fairly boring life. However, Claire lives a double life, posting on a steamy online blog pretending to be ‘NiceGirl’, a rather experienced woman who posts about her various exploits in and out of the bedroom. It soon catches the eye of London publisher Mark Bell, and when he offers her more than a book deal, Claire is worried he will find out she isn’t the experienced girl that her blog has led him to believe. Claire needs to get some experience and fast – enter Luca, a broke but very handsome artist who is willing to help Claire out. But will Claire get more than she’s bargained for from her time with Luca?

You can see from the synopsis that this is going to be a bit of a naughty read, and I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t sure how Murphy would handle this in the book. However, I was pleasantly surprised. The naughty blog posts appear at the start of chapters within the book, and whilst they were quite rude and a tad graphic in parts, they were well done and fitted in with the theme of the blog perfectly. Some of things were a little bit surprising for me, and there is a bit of bad language, but I think by the synopsis of the book, you know what you are going to get when you read this. However, the blog posts take up such a small part of the book, it is really Claire’s story that you start to love and want to read about.

I loved Claire from the beginning, and I loved the idea of her writing this naughty blog when really not an ounce of it is true! She doesn’t tell any of her family about it, quite understandably I suppose, so when her new publisher clearly wants to be more than friends, Claire is worried that he will realise just how inexperienced she is. Her relationship with her new ‘business partner’ Luca is intriguing, she’s sure she won’t fall for him and just wants to use him to get some more experience with men. I wasn’t sure how this story was going to go as I had my doubts, but I ended totally hooked by Claire and Luca. I think as a reader I could see how it was going to end up, but I didn’t care – I just wanted to find out how things were going to get there for the pair.

Of course, some of these scenes too were quite naughty – there’s a few descriptions of what the pair get up to between the sheets, but these were very well written, not too smutty but enough detail for us to get into Claire’s head and understand how she’s feeling. I loved her awkwardness and naivety with this situation and what she had to do – it’s very endearing, but I couldn’t help but fall a bit for Luca too – he sounds so wonderful! Clodagh Murphy is an absolutely wonderful writer, and absorbed me right into Claire and Luca’s world for the short time I was reading this book. I could not put it down because I was desperate to keep reading and find out what the pair were going to get up to next. As well as the more naughty side of the book there are some more serious and emotional stories with Claire and her mother that really moved me, and it shows Murphy’s writing talents that she was able to move between the scenes so easily and draw such strong emotion from her readers. I loved this book, it was a joy to read from start to finish and I really was devastated to turn the last page and leave Claire and Luca behind for good. I cannot wait to read more novels from Clodagh Murphy – why I haven’t read anything by her before I’ll never know!