Book Review: An Offer You Can't Refuse by Jill Mansell

An Offer You Can't Refuse tells us the story of Lola Malone. At the start of the book, Lola is a 17 year old girl in love with her boyfriend Dougie. But when Dougie's mother offers her £10,000 to break up with her son, Lola takes the money and leaves Dougie well alone.

But she gets a shock ten years later when the Malone's come back into her life and she finds out how much she missed Dougie. However, is he going to find out Lola took money for breaking up with him? And will Lola be able to win back Dougie with the help of his sister Sally and best mate Gabe?

As I said, I hadn't read any of Jill Mansell's books before, despite her having written 18 books in my favourite genre of literature - chick lit! I quite liked the premise of this one so I thought it would be worth a go. As I started the book, I was pleased to see it's written in the third person, my favourite writing style, and I quickly got into the book. It dives straight in with its plot so you get hooked straight away, which is a good tool used by the author.

The characters are all incredibly likeable, all except Dougie's mother Adele of course. Lola, the main female lead is a lovely character, and you'll soon get to find out why she took the money for breaking uo with Dougie. Although she is young and fashionable, she works in a book shop and is passionate about books. It's nice to see a young character who loves books being written about - it's quite rare actually! Although at points Lola's obsession with Dougie did teeter on being ever so slightly annoying, she was still likeable and a fun character, one who you wanted to follow the story with and just find out how it is all going to turn out in the end.

The other characters in the book appear regularly, which gives good continuity and stops there being too many characters in the book, which can often spoil a good story. Lola's mother Blythe doesn't know what Lola did when she was 17, so when she finds out Lola's in contact with Dougie again she wants them back together! Blythe is a recent widow and her tentative steps back onto the dating scene and mentioned and Lola and Blythe's shopping trips never failed to have me smiling as I read on!

Gabe is Lola's best friend who lives opposite Lola in London. He's clearly a male in touch with his feminine side, but to be honest, I wish I had a best mate like him! He is obsessively tidy, and his character develops more when his career takes a rather different and funny turn! Sally, who is Dougie's brother, lives with Gabe as well, and is completely messy despite looking like she has stepped out of Vogue every morning. She's a lovely person and nice to Lola, but I found she was very whiny and wasn't really my favourite character. She was well-developed but I just didn't like her all that much! There is another character in the book but I think I'll be spoiling it if I tell you anymore so I shan't!

The author has a great writing style, and moves the book along at a nice pace. All too often, I start reading a book which starts off well and then tails to the end, either skipping important parts too quickly or dragging on which makes me bored. But Jill Mansell seems to have this just right. All the loose ends are tied up nicely, none of the characters have an unbelievable ending and the whole thing wraps up nicely. I found the ending satisfying and wasn't left disappointed at all, thank goodness! Nothing worse than finishing a book and thinking "Is that it?!".

So would I recommend it? I certainly would! Although this is my first outing into a Jill Mansell book, I am a convert to her writing and I am going to be hunting out more of her books to read, and I just hope they match the great standard of this one! In this novel, the characters are likeable, you want everything to work out for Lola, the plot is somewhat believable and it is just a thoroughly enjoyable and escapist read. I loved it, and I'm very glad I decided to give it a go!

Rating: 5/5

Book Review: Sapphire by Katie Price

Sapphire Jones runs a successful hen weekends business, but ironically she's pretty unlucky in love herself. She's already had 1 failed marriage, and her latest fling with Jay seems to be getting too serious for Sapphire's liking.

Things start to look up for Sapphire when she gets to host a celebrity hen-night but an unwelcome face makes a return, and ends up introducing Sapphire to some unsavoury people she can't seem to get rid of.

Add that to the fact that things aren't going well with Jay, her friendships with Jazz and Sam her best mates are waning and her mum is having some serious problems too. How is Sapphire going to solve all her problems, and has she let love slip away when she least wanted it to?

Now, let me start by saying that I'm not really a Katie Price fan, so you might be wondering what I'm doing reading one of her books. Well, I recently read the debut novel of Rebecca Farnworth called Valentine who is the ghost-writer for Katie Price and I loved it, so  I decided I'd give this one a go too! Katie Price gives the idea for the story to Rebecca, and then she turns it into the novel that we all read, so really it is a Farnworth book, not a Price one despite her name in rather large lettering on the cover! I wonder how many people think that Katie sits and writes these books herself?!  The pretty red cover is quite striking to be honest, but I have to say it's not a book I would readily read in public view, sorry Katie!

The book is pretty much what you would expect from the storyline and the "author". It focusses on a single woman whose ex-husband has cheated on her so she's wary of forming any more close relationships with men (is Katie trying to tell us something?). The main character of Sapphire is actually fairly likeable, she isn't too over-the-top and for the most part she is a character that the reader will care about and consequently you'll want to read the book to find out what will happen to her. I think you can see hints of Katie in Sapphire, and I wonder whether she meant to hint at things in her personal life through this book.

There were a lot of twists in the story and I didn't see a lot of them coming, so I have to give credit to Katie and Rebecca for this. There were some quite sinister scenes in the book that I didn't expect for a book like this, but they did add a little something extra to it that stopped it being a generic happy-go-lucky Chick-lit book. Yes, it is very predictable and you can see how things are going to turn out within the first few chapters but that doesn't stop you enjoying the journey of getting there and the turns along the way too.

The writing style is very reader-friendly, and the third person narrative allows the reader to get right into the story of Sapphire very well, and therefore to get involved with her character. However, I don't recall any scenes that didn't have Sapphire in which is somewhat unusual for a third person narrative but it didn't feel too Sapphire heavy which is due to the good writing. It's set in Brighton, somewhere I haven't visited but I could visual all the places mentioned, they were written in good detail and I can imagine Katie had some input in describing some of her favourite Brighton haunts.

I did enjoy the book, but I dare say that's because of Rebecca Farnworth's enjoyable writing style, although the plot wasn't that bad really! Yes it's predictable regarding the ending, but the plot twists did keep it interesting. If it gets people reading, it's got to be a good thing but I do sort of resent Katie putting her name to the book and acting like she's written it when its Rebecca Farnworth who sat down and put together the whole story in words. I know authors get annoyed when they see Katie Price's novels at the top of the best-seller charts but they seem to give women what they want - a good story, a likeable leading lady, hunky men and a dash of sex as well. It's very light-hearted easy reading, but delivers on what you'd expect. Enjoyable.

Rating: 4/5

Book Review: Sisters in Law by Nina Bell

Kate, Heather and Olivia are sisters-in-law and are all hiding something from the Fox family. The family have big expectations and the 3 women sometimes struggle to keep up with them. When the mysterious Sasha enters their lives one mealtime, all 3 women are immediately suspicious.

Kate wonders why her partner Johnny has started working long hours at the office without a worry about their 2 children, can army wife Heather trust her husband Jack when he is home from duty, and is Olivia able to keep Simon's secret forever, or will it spell the end for one Fox marriage?

Will Sasha will be able to penetrate the Fox family, and if so, which Fox husband is about to play with fire?

This book first caught my eye when I noticed it on Amazon many months ago, and I've been looking forward to reading it since then. I very much enjoy books based around family relationships as I find them interesting, so I hoped this one would be good too. This is Nina Bell's second book, but I haven't yet read her first which is called Inheritance, however I'll be looking out for it on my next visit to the library! The book's striking cerise pink text stands out against the cover image, and I think it is a well crafted cover that will catch people's attention!

Kate is introduced to us as the main character of the story, with the other storylines revolving around her and her family. Kate is the only Fox woman in the story (bar her mother), yet she is possibly the most insecure of the sisters-in-law. Her relationship with Johnny isn't as good as she wants it to be, and I very much enjoyed the twists and turns their relationship took through the book. I liked Kate very much, she was a very normal character, one that you can relate to easily, and I wanted things to be okay for her with Johnny.

The other two women also feature heavily in the book but aren't the driving force behind it like Kate is. Olivia is a career-girl who takes the blame for the lack of children in her marriage to Simon yet won't reveal his secret. I liked her very much, she was headstrong and her storyline was unexpected and very fun to read, it surprised me and I liked the way it concluded for Olivia. Heather is the one I wasn't so fond of. She has a bad background but it didn't make me like her anymore, I just found her irritating and a tad weak, so for me she wasn't the best character but did add something to the book regardless.

The story is very much focused on the evil Sasha, and though I could see where the general direction was going from early on, it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the book and I liked it very much. Sasha was incredibly wicked and a great villain, I absolutely hated her and I was so annoyed the Fox women didn't stand up to her much sooner! However, she allows the twists and turns to progress and the book wouldn't have been fun if they had found her out within 100 pages! The twist with her and the Fox family was surprising as I didn't expect it, so this was good and I felt Bell has done a good job with keeping the plot exciting and readable!

If you like family-relationship driven books with a twist, then Sisters in Law may well be the book for you! I loved Nina Bell's writing style which kept me hooked through the 400+ pages, however I found myself powering through them very quickly as I just couldn't put it down! I loved the third person narration, and I found it easy to keep track of all the stories despite the change of them quite frequently. I look forward to reading Nina Bell's debut and any other releases, and this one is highly recommended by me, a really great read overall, very enjoyable!

Rating: 5/5

Thank you to the publishers SPHERE for sending us a copy to review.

Book Review: Do Not Disturb by Tilly Bagshawe

Do Not Disturb is set in the world of hotels. Honor Palmer is a hotel heiress who is forced to take over the running of Palmers Hotel in East Hampton when her father dies. The local residents do not take kindly to this so Honor has to build up her reputation again. She has to do this in spite of her publicity-seeking sister Tina who is bleeding the sisters inheritance dry, and a new modern, sleed hotel ran by world-famous hotel Anton Tisch opening up down the road. Not to mention competing with the Spanish womaniser Lucas Ruiz who is running the new Tisch hotel, the Herrick.

As usual, Bagshawe has a novel with a few main characters, all of whom have an equal importance throughout the novel. All are given a good and strong background, allowing you to get to know them well and in detail, a useful thing for a fairly substantial sized novel (as this one is nearly 500 pages). As mentioned, the main character is Honor Palmer. She is a strong-minded and strong-willed woman who is incredibly determined that her hotel will be a success. She is written as a ruthless businesswoman-type character, although we are shown weak and vunerable sides to her personality, especially concerning her body-image and need to be loved.

It is interesting to see how she changes around the different characters in her life, and how they all impact on her. She has created an enemy for Honor in the Spaniard Lucas Ruiz, the man initially in charge of the Herrick. He is an opposite of Honor, hot-headed, confident and arrogant, convinced he is destined to run a world class hotel at his young age. Exchanges between the pair are unpleasant but make for interesting reading!

Another major character in the book is the Billionaire hotelier and owner of the Tisch group of hotels Anton Tisch. Anton is a ruthless German hotel mogul who has built up a world famous empire in the hotel world. He is known for his promiscuity, paying off women who end up bearing his children as a result of their liaisons, and incredibly disliked. And God forbid anyone who cross him as they'll be crushed like an ant beneath your shore. He is a horrible character, slimy and completely unlikeable but it does make you want to keep reading just to see if he is going to get his comeupance.

The whole story of people competing to make the better hotel has been done a few times before, as its a good thing to write about and to read as well. But Bagshawe has created a great set of characters which you get really involved with by the end of the book. Each are different people clashing over their dreams and although you are meant to like some, and hate others, you can't help but want them all to succeed at the end because it is their dream to make it work! Some of the other minor characters also play a key role in the book too, Sian, a young journalist, Lola, the daughter of a Boston millionaire; and Tina, Honor's sister. All crop up regularly through the book in vital roles which also keeps you involved.

There is one thing that I don't like about Tilly Bagshawe's novels I must admit. This was not just apparent in this particular novel, I found it also to be the case in her first novel, and will probably be the case in her second book too. I don't really like the crude language used when she writes a sexual scene in a book. I especially don't like how she uses the C-word - in my opinion it is the foulest word in the English language and I HATE seeing it in print, and it really is unpleasant. It isn't necessary in this great story, and for me spoilt some of the love scenes in the book. I really hope she writes these scenes in a better way in the future as I might be put off her reading her books in the future if she doesn't.

So what did I think? To be honest, I found it took me a little while to get into the book, although I can't really pinpoint why this is as it is a great story! As the book progresses, it becomes a great battle of personalities and determination, of crushing your enemy and coming out on top of everyone else. It is quite lengthy for a chick-lit book but doesn't drag on with nothing happening - each chapter is necessary and I wasn't bored at any point. In fact, I just got more involved towards the end, I ploughed through the last 150 pages in a very short time! A really good exciting read, and another super novel from Tilly Bagshawe.

Rating: 4/5

Book Review: Who Gets Fluffy? by Judith Summers

Annie Curtis has decided enough is enough with philanderer husband Mark, and on Christmas Day tells him their marriage is over.

They decide to carry on living together with their dog Fluffy in order to maintain an amicable divorce, but that is thrown into chaos when Mark decides to go for full custody of Fluffy.

Annie is outraged because to her, the dog is her baby. Annie is determined to win the battle between the pair as several shocking truths come out, and Annie's life is turned upside down...

Now I'll be honest and say that I don't particularly understand people substituting children for dogs, or indeed treating their dogs like they are humans, but I was prepared to let this go for the sake of the story! As I said, the cute cover of a little doggy clutching a Christmas stocking in his mouth was too cute to resist, and I hoped the story would be good enough to make me want to read it! The book started off quite well, introducing us to the character of Annie in her solicitors office discussing the demise of her marriage and terms of her divorce. I actually thought she was a bit of a sap at the beginning because of certain things she says, but thankfully my opinion did change a bit as the book goes on!

As the book begins with the divorce of the pair, I was wondering whether the author Judith Summers was going with the story after this, but thankfully all because clear. The majority of the book is told to us in flashback style, with Annie recounting the main reason for her divorce, and then as the story progresses, how she got Fluffy, how she met Mark and then later on the "custody battle" over the dog. As its told this way, we do cover a good time period in the book and therefore get to know the characters quite well too. Because of this, I felt I could enjoy the book more because I knew the ins and outs of the lives of Annie and Mark, and consequently felt something for both of them as the book progressed!

From the start, I could tell that the book was going to be quite funny and I was definitely right. It has me laughing throughout, albeit not huge bellows of laughter but still made me at least crack a smile on quite a few occasions! Summers writing style is incredibly easy to read and you really don't have to work too hard when you read this because it just flows so well and is thoroughly enjoyable to read. Summers has chosen to write in the first person from the character of Annie's perspective and this allows the story to become really in-depth about Annie's emotions and life, which I felt gave the comedy book a bit of a more grown-up edge.

The book is really a good read, and definitely falls into the chick-lit genre of books but for me that is not a bad thing! However, what I felt was a bit different about it was a few twists and turns that the book took towards the end that really surprised me. They weren't the sort of twists you'd expect in this type of book at all, and for me it sort of made it a bit more realistic and gritty than it otherwise would have been. The overall ending seemed a bit disappointing to me but did work well for the story and rounded things off in a nice way, not leaving any endings untied just like you'd expect from this sort of book. Summers' writing is great, very easy to read and just a thoroughly funny and enjoyable read. I'd highly recommend to anyone who is a fan of the genre, and I've already passed my copy on to my mum who I am sure will love it. Recommended.

Rating: 5/5

Book Review: Divas by Rebecca Chance

Lola Fitzgerald has a pretty charmed life. She has every designer piece of clothing she wants, holidays on tap and homes around the world courtesy of her rather rich father.

But Lola's world is thrown into disarray when her father falls into a coma and Lola's stepmother Carin cuts off all of her funds immediately. Her situation gets worse when Lola discovers the existance of her father's mistress Evie Lopez, and her fiance is thrown into rehab for drug addiction.

Lola wants back what is rightfully hers but she is forced to team up with Evie to catch Carin out and get her out of her life once and for all.

"Divas" is the debut novel for Rebecca Chance, and she follows the line of great "bonkbuster" authors such as the Bagshawe sisters Louise and Tilly, Lulu Taylor, Jo Carnegie and Olivia Darling who have all embraced the gritty side of "chick-lit" and done so brilliantly as well. The striking purple cover of the book immediately took my eye, and it made me want to read it, and the recommendations from Louise Bagshawe and Olivia Darling were great and well placed for a book like this as well!

The story mainly follows the character of Lola Fitzgerald, very much a pampered rich girl who lives off Daddy's trust fund. However, the twist in this book is that she has to learn to live without it (albeit not very successfully!) and contend with the wicked stepmother too. Although I didn't expect to, I absolutely loved the character of Lola because she was very likeable, and because of the twists and turns in the story, you sympathise with her character and grow to like her despite her sometimes selfish attitude!

Evie is the other main character in the book, and I didn't like her as much as Lola. She seemed far more mercenary than Lola, and although that fitted in with the plot, I just didn't warm to her as much and consequently didn't care as much for her story. As her story became more interwoven with Lola's, I began to care more for it but still not the character so much. Even so, she was a good enough character and served a good purpose for the story which was interesting enough. My favourite character was Lola's fiance Jean-Marc - he was hilarious and lit up every scene he was in because he was just so funny! Chance has clearly put him in there for the comic relief and it works, he's fab and I wish he had been in the book a bit more!

The book moves locations throughout and I found this really fun and exciting to read. It moves from London to New York and even to Italy for a little part of the book, and I liked this. Chance has clearly done her research when it comes to the locations mentioned as she describes things very well and it was very enjoyable to read. You can vividly imagine all the posh hotels Lola stays in, the shabby room that Evie has to camp down in and the plush home of Carin quite easily because of Chance's vivid writing, and it really is a joy to read. The writing style is easy to read and enjoyable and the book moves at a great pace with some shocking twists and turns along the way. The sex scenes in the book are sometimes quite graphic in their descriptions so perhaps if that isn't for you, skip over those parts as they aren't too frequent but I didn't find them too OTT and they didn't seem unnecessary in the book either.

This is a fantastic read, and I would thoroughly recommend it. It's a brilliant read full of fun, shocks, sex and a great story and I really couldn't put it down once I had started reading it. It surprised me along the way, and the shocks kept me completely hooked, I didn't expect half of them as they happened! For a debut novel, I think this book is brilliantly written and is definitely a recommended summer read (what's left of it!) but a book you can enjoy all year too. I loved every page and was disappointed when it ended, so I can't wait to read more of Rebecca Chance's work in the future! A superb read, very highly recommended!

Rating: 5/5

Book Review: Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham

Holly Denham works as a receptionist at a big bank in London, and is slowly getting used to her job, alongside her colleagues, keeping in touch with her ever eccentric family and her best friends Jason and Aisha.

The "story" unfolds through the emails sent between Holly, her friends and family and basically gives the ups and downs of Holly's life, from getting a new boyfriend, learning her job and trying to keep track of her Granny who is living it up at her OAP home.

The story does unfold quite slowly throughout the book but does work up to a nice and surprising climax at the end.

Holly's Inbox is based on the emails of a receptionist working in London called Holly Denham. It all started with an online website, www.hollysinbox.com, which was apparently revealing Holly's emails to the web in real time. This was a real craze online, somehow I missed it so I was quite eager to read the books and find out what it was about. I've since done a bit of digging and found out it is indeed fiction, and was just chick-lit revealed as emails in real time. It's a strange idea to me, but there you go.

As I mentioned, although it has been marketed as if Holly is a real person, but she is indeed a fictional character. I really warmed to her through reading her emails, she's very funny and the writing style is very natural and easy going. As the emails are written as they were "sent", you get to form your own opinions about Holly and the other characters in the book, although the way Holly is written you are definitely supposed to like her and want to read on to find out more about her! Because it is meant to be written by a normal woman, you get a really good glimpse into the life of a modern woman, happy and sad!

Other characters in the book include my favourite Jason, who is Holly's gay best friend and absolutely hilarious. The conversations between Holly and Jason were light relief throughout and were really a joy to read. Aisha was another of Holly's friends and although she was nice enough, she got on my nerves a lot and I found myself wanting to skip her emails. The last main character is Holly's fellow receptionist, Patricia, or Trish as she is on her emails. The banter between the two women was very realistic but so enjoyable to read and I found myself really liking Trish as her and Holly grew closer.

At over 700 pages long, this book does look like an enormous chunk of reading material but really, it isn't. The book, as mentioned, is set out in email form with a To and From, Subject line then the body of the email which is rarely over a few lines long. As the emails are short, they don't cover anywhere near a whole, even half probably, so you can easily sit and read a load of pages at once because of the spread-out layout the book. This allows you to dip in and out of the story quite easily, and was fairly easy to pick up too as the story was easy to follow and slow to develop. I found myself getting really involved in the book and easily reading 100+ pages in one sitting, so it didn't take me long to get through the whole book.

It is an easy read, written in a bit of an unusual way but I think that adds to the charm of it to be honest. The characters were all great, especially Holly, Jason and Trish and you can feel yourself getting more involved in the story as it developed, and I was desperate to find out how it was all going to end for Holly and co. It is funny, and a very light-hearted read so I would definitely recommend it as a holiday read, perfect for chilling out and taking your mind off the day, immerse yourself in someone else's life for a while!

Rating: 4/5