Novelicious - The Female Fiction and Chick Lit Blog

Review - The Fall by Claire McGowan

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR   

Charlotte arrives home to the minimalist, tastefully decorated Belsize apartment she shares with her handsome, banker fiancé, Dan. She might look immaculate with her shiny, blonde hair and perfectly manicured nails, but she’s stressed out from phone calls about her wedding the following week. The last thing she needs to do is go out that night, but when Dan tells her there’s problems at the bank and suggests going out to a Jamaican club in Kingston Town for some fun, she reluctantly agrees.

Dan offers Charlotte cocaine and for the first time in her life she accepts it. Their evening doesn't go well and Dan angrily confronts the owner, Anthony, when he laughs at him and tells him that Dan’s business card has been cancelled and he has to pay for his drinks. 

Keisha Collins has a very different life to the one Charlotte enjoys. She lives in a run-down, rented flat with her temperamental boyfriend, Chris Deans. Chris is her daughter, Ruby’s, father and also the reason the little girl has been taken from Keisha. She wants her daughter back, but has loved Chris since she first saw him at school when she was twelve and can't imagine her life without him in it. Thankfully, Ruby is being looked after by her mum, Mercy, so Keisha can visit her and knows she’s well loved and properly cared for.

Review - The Courtesan's Lover by Gabrielle Kimm

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR

It’s 1564 and Francesca Felizzi, a beautiful and talented courtesan, entertains her patrons in one of the two homes she owns in Naples. Her loyal servant, Modesto, a castrato, sits outside her bedroom door ready to defend her should it be necessary. He is determined that a repetition of the violence that Francesca endured from a previous patron that left her scarred both physically and emotionally, will never happen again.

Francesca writes about her encounters and any information she gleans from the men who visit her into a journal she calls, The Book of Encounters. Modesto insists that this is her insurance for the future should she ever need it. Her patrons are not allowed to visit her at the home she shares with her beautiful twin daughters and Modesto, and it’s here that she is able to enjoy precious time alone with them.

Francesca is popular and expensive, her clothes are exquisite and her lifestyle lavish, but it’s only when, Gianni, a shy, virgin, is sent to her by his brother and friend and treats her with a sensitivity she hasn’t seen before that she realizes she’s never truly been loved. Gianni changes the way Francesca sees herself and her career and she begins to question what she wants out of life. Then, when her young daughters’ lives are threatened, Francesca knows she has to start making changes.

Review - Watching Willow Watts by Talli Roland

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR  

Willow Watts was happy with her life in London working as a florist at Liberty's and spending time with her handsome boyfriend, Alex. Then her mother died. Her father, Dickie becomes ill and she immediately leaves behind her dream life to return to her ugly, dull hometown of Belcherton. Discovering her father has business debts, she decides to stay and try to find a way to recoup funds to get his everything back in order.

She jokingly agrees to dress up as Marilyn for Simpson Dyer, head of the town's tourist board, who is determined to put his town on the map and generate some much needed funding for the area. He films her and superimposing a picture of Marilyn above Willow's head, he uploads the film to YouTube where it soon goes viral and she becomes a worldwide sensation. Willow/Marilyn is suddenly famous and fans start arriving in Belcherton from all over the world to see their idol's reincarnation. Jay Bellamy, a down-on-his-luck agent, immediately sees an opportunity to make money and rushes to Belcherton to persuade Willow to sign up with him. Willow falls for Jay's charm, falling out with her best friend in the process, and believes him when he insists he can make her rich. 

Review - Christmas at Tiffany's by Karen Swan

REVIEWED BY KIRSTY NICOLE POLE

I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but the moment I laid eyes on my copy of ‘Christmas at Tiffany’s’ the little girl inside me started doing somersaults at the image of the glitter and sparkle of a white Christmas in New York City and I couldn’t wait to discover the story behind the cover, hoping, above everything, that I would fall in love with the characters as much as I had the cover. I wasn’t disappointed…

In the first pages of the book we meet Cassie, Anouk, Kelly and Suzy, four best friends who are all unique in their own way and after our protagonist Cassie suddenly finds herself on a plane to New York contemplating starting her whole life over again we join the four friends as they try to help Cassie discover exactly who she is by living with each one of them in New York, Paris and finally, London. As Cassie tries to adjust to life outside the Scottish borders, where she’s been living a sheltered existence for the last 10 years, we see and experience New York City, Paris and London through her eyes. The sights, the smells and the tiny details that Karen Swan so expertly adds into the description of the city makes you feel like you’re sipping your first ever sparkly pink cocktail or admiring Central Park with Cassie as she suffers through the morning jog from hell! Each city in the book is described so wonderfully that it’s impossible not to feel like you are there.

Each of the four main characters are addictive in their own ways, Karen Swan succeeds in keeping us hooked as we travel to each friend’s city and we follow Cassie as she attempts Tower Running, experiences a Beauty Therapist on a waxing mission that will make you squeeze your eyes shut, tries her luck as a Wedding Planner and manages to fall in and out of love and lust along the way.

As Cassie bounces from city to city, with an intense stopover in Venice in between (I’ll let you discover more about that yourselves when you read it!) you fall in love with Cassie’s character, as wounded as she is at the start of the book the reader sees her grow and discover exactly what it is that she wants with the help of her friends and one character in particular who leaves Cassie ‘The List’ for each city she stays in…

The biggest winner for me when reading this book was how Karen Swan keeps you hooked, I found myself looking desperately at the clock one night seeing how long I could keep reading for before I absolutely HAD to go to sleep…(it was 2.30am at this point) I had fallen in love with the characters, the cities, the men and I couldn’t bear to close my eyes until I finished the page…or I fell asleep and the book hit me in the face…which did happen at one point!

By the time I finished the book I had raced through it to the end, desperate to find out if Cassie and the girls finally got the endings that they deserved, I know how I feel about it but I’ll let you decide. For a book that is a voyage of delicious discovery, friendship, love and is sprinkled with sparkle, allure and excitement. I encourage everyone to spend their ‘Christmas at Tiffany’s’.

9/10

MORE ABOUT CHRISTMAS AT TIFFANY'S

Review - My Sweet Saga by Brett Sills

REVIEWED BY AMANDA KEATS

My Sweet Saga opens with Brandon arrested and on a plane with a police escort, in a lot of pain and bleeding. He takes us back to how he got to be in this situation...

Brandon is trapped in an engagement he doesn't want, to the controlling and neurotic Clarissa, with in-laws who can't stand him, an MIA mother and a wealthy joke of a father who hasn't called in months. But Brandon is quite content being miserable. That is until his father calls out of the blue and casually requests his presence at a dinner in Sweden. He's lost a bet with a man from Sweden and must now treat him to dinner in his home country. For reasons unknown to Brandon, the man has requested his presence. All Brandon has to do is show up. Unfortunately for his dad, Brandon doesn't have a great relationship with his father and has absolutely no desire to accompany him half-way across the world for dinner... until he mentions the idea to fiancée Clarissa. Clarissa is horrified that Brandon would even contemplate flying off to Sweden so soon before the wedding and forbids him - yes forbids him. You can imagine what he does next...

 

Our unlikely hero flies all the way to Sweden, without telling the old ball and chain, and meets the mystery Swede and his daughter Saga. It is this chance meeting that will turn Brandon's happily miserable life on its head and through proposals, encounters with Swedish officials, chases and sexual awakenings, Brandon will learn that life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

 

My Sweet Saga is sexy, clever and funny with plot twists at every turn that will leave you guessing to the very last page. The dry oh-so-american wit of the male lead will have you gasping with shock at his total lack of political correctness and snorting with embarrassing laughter in equal measure.

 

9/10 

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MY SWEET SAGA

Review - Watch Over Me by Daniela Sacerdoti

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR

Another fabulous book delivered to my door. Eilidh Lawson is distraught, she's just suffered a miscarriage and is finally beginning to accept that despite years of fertility treatments, she's never going to be able to have the baby she longs for. She can't feel too badly towards her cheating husband and knows that however much she's suffered over the years, he can't have found it easy living with someone so desperate for something she seems unable to attain. She returns to the Highlands where she spent several happy years as a child to try and find a way to start healing from her loss.

Jamie is Eilidh's childhood friend. He's doing his best to look after his beloved daughter, Maisie and make up for his wife abandoning them and returning to London where her career as an artist is her first priority. He's a handsome target for the single women who live in his home town and when they see Eilidh spending time with his daughter, it doesn't occur to any of them that she might simply be helping him and not seeing him as someone to fall in love with.

Elizabeth, Jamie's mother has been dead for a couple of years, but that's not going to stop her from trying to mend both Eilidh and Jamie's hearts by pushing them together. However, it's easy to plan these things, but each of them soon discover that not much works out in the way any of them expect.

Watch Over Me is a poignant and beautifully crafted story. It's written from several points of view, not only Eilidh's and Jamie's but also his Elizabeth's and others. The chapters are short and it's pretty impossible to put it down.

9/10

Watch Over Me was published on 15th November and you can find out more about it here.

Review - The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller

REVIEWED BY CESCA MARTIN

Holy Moly this is good! I seem to have had a glut of some stonking good historical reads recently and this book is no exception. 

The book is set in England in 1920.  After the death of his wife and baby, and his harrowing war time experiences, Laurence Bartram is living a quiet life.  Researching a book on churches in England, spending some time with his boisterous, childhood friend Charles, Laurence is, I imagine, like many men in the aftermath of World War I; a little at sea.  Then an innocent request from a friend, the sister of one Captain John Emmett, turns Laurence’s safe, new world upside down.  John Emmett survived the war but killed himself and his sister wants to know why.  As the search for answers leads Laurence with a heap of other questions, and the discovery of a whole host of untimely deaths, we begin to realise the story of Captain John Emmett is not as simple as it might first have appeared.

This is a beautifully dense debut novel from Elizabeth Speller.  You feel instantly at ease in the hands of a perfectionist; her ability to draw you into the rich world of post-war Britain is found on every page.  If you like your novels fast paced and resolved quickly - this is not the book for you.  It is a relaxing meander through this time; the atmosphere, the locations, the descriptions include layer upon layer of detail.  All the while however you are keen to get back to the wonderful Laurence Bartram (I imagine a sort of 1920’s George Clooney type in a really nice tweed suit – but then that’s me!) and his search to discover what exactly did happen to Captain John Emmett.  You want to uncover the mystery, and in the meantime are hugely entertained by some wonderful characters (Charles is really very amusing and Laurence himself is such a gent) and some witty one-liners.  When Laurence angrily states that he knows where to find a man, “He is in Birmingham.” Charles retorts, “Ah yes that rural hamlet”.   This novel kept me guessing, painted a horribly vivid account of instances both during and after the war, and kept me coming back for more.  I would love to read Elizabeth Speller’s next book; this is definitely an author to look out for.

9/10

You can buy this book here and find out more about Elizabeth Speller on her website.

Review - The Help by Kathryn Stockett

REVIEWED BY AMANDA KEATS

"Go find your life"

I read The Help in two days - thanks in part to our Indian summer, but mostly due to the fact that the book is impossible to put down. The Help is about Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a white twenty-something woman in Jacksonville, Mississippi during the 1960s, and the unlikely friendship she forges with the hired help. Skeeter's family have had a black maid her entire life, as have most white families in the area. This is standard and being raised by the maid, Constantine, does not strike Skeeter as strange until she returns from university to discover her maid has quit. She can sense there is more to the story as it is out of character for Constantine to just vanish without so much as a letter of explanation - but her mother insists she just quit and left to go and live with her daughter. It is this event that causes Skeeter to see things in a different light and she is suddenly very aware of the injustice these maids suffer daily. They can raise the child of a white woman, but can't use the same toilet.

Review - Friday Night With The Girls by Shari Low

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR

Lou Cairney has never fitted in with her parent's lifestyle. She feels very excluded by them and especially by her father. She wants to carry on at school to gain some qualifications, but her father insists that at sixteen it's time she started working full-time at the hairdressers where she's been a Saturday girl for the past three years. Deciding that she's had enough of their behaviour, she moves in with her aunt Josie instead. Her two best friends, Lizzy and Ginger, feel more like family to her than her parents and the three of them promise to keep each Friday free to meet up, or at least that's the plan.

The book starts in 2008 with the the women enjoying a spa weekend at a hotel in Glasgow. Lou has something she has to tell them and needs their support more than ever. As each woman reminisces about their teenage years, disastrous relationships and in some case, choices, they remember things they had each forgotten and discover more about each other and themselves than they had expected.

Review - Far To Go by Alison Pick

REVIEWED BY CESCA MARTIN

This book came to my attention after being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year. As ever I had read all of none of the books being talked about and believed now, in my thirtieth year, that situation should be rectified.  ‘Far to Go’ caught my attention, the poignant cover of the book showing a lost child of war, and I wanted to know more.

The book followed the story of a secular Jewish family living in the Sudetenland who are trying to flee the Nazis.  Pavel Bauer is a wealthy factory owner living with his glamorous wife Annelise, their six-year old son Pepik and their beloved nanny, Marta.  As news and rumours about their friends and acquaintances reach them Pavel tries to protect his family by moving them out of reach of the Nazis.  When things turn sour, and the family are betrayed, they are split up and their different fates sealed. 

Review - Highland Storms by Christina Courtenay

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR

It's 1754 and Brice Kinross is slowly coming to terms with the loss of his sweetheart to his brother. When Brice's father asks him to leave his home in Sweden and return to Rosyth, the family estate in the Scottish Highlands, he is only too happy to do so. However, since the Jacobite Rebellion when the Highlanders were subjected to cruel treatment by the Redcoats, the locals don't take kindly to strangers and are suspicious when Brice returns to his Rosyth unnannounced. Under the direction of the foreman, Seton, a sly man with his own agenda, the Highlanders do not make Brice feel welcome and are relieved to see the back of him after his initial visit.

Marsaili Buchanan, the beautiful, young housekeeper at Rosyth has to fend off Seton's constant advances. She is determined not to let him have his own way and is guarded by her companion and bodyguard, a Deerhound called Liath, who does his best to keep Seton from getting too close to his mistress. She initially believes Seton's assurances that Brice is a traitor to their cause, but soon works out that Brice isn't the untrustworthy cad Seton insists him to be. She is aware that Seton has been creaming off the profits from the estate and Brice soon realizes this too.

Review - The Very Picture Of You by Isabel Wolff

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR

Ella Graham paints portraits, is single and dislikes her sister, Chloe's fiancé, Nate, with a passion. She can't forget how she overheard him talking disparagingly about her sister to another woman and not wishing to upset her sister, she keeps quiet and resolves to see him as little as possible.

Her mother holds a charity auction and Chloe bids for Ella's lot for a commission to paint someone's portrait. She tells Ella that she wants Nate to sit for her, and for her to paint his portrait, so she can give it to him on their wedding day as a present. Ella, loves her sister, so has no choice but to push aside her dislike of the man and do her best.

Most of the time Ella loves her job. She meets many interesting people, from Mrs Carr (love that name!) a lady in her eighties with a heartbreaking secret she's kept to herself for years; Celine, a spoilt French woman with a seemingly perfect life, who resents having her portrait painted now she's about to turn forty, and Mike a once happy politician who has something so terrible on his mind that he seems to age every time he arrives for a sitting.

Ella has her own heartbreak to contend with. Her absent father, John, left her and her mother when she was small and now he wants to meet up with Ella. Her mother refuses to divulge any information about him and has even thrown away all his photos. The only reminder Ella has of him are pictures she drew from memory when she was smaller. Did he really simply turn his back on them, or was there more about his departure than her mother has admitted?

Ellla battles with her mother's selfishness and with her own past. She doesn't want to upset her step-father, Roy, by agreeing to meet her father, but ends up confiding in him about her dilemma. During the sittings, Nate and Ella begin to talk. She soon realizes he's not as bad as she initially assumed and despite her best efforts begins to fall in love with him. Ella has choices to make and none of them are going to be easy.

I'm always thrilled to read an Isabel Wolff book and this one was just as good as I'd hoped. Ella and Chloe's relationship is lovely and you can see why Nate is so appealling. The secondary characters are beautifully layered and Isabel Wolff's books are always difficult, if not impossible, to put down. This one was no exception. The conflicting emotions experienced by Ella are beautifully written and I couldn't imagine how the story could end happily. You'll have to read it yourself to find out what does happen, but I can assure you it's very satisfying. 

9/10

The Very Picture Of You is published by Harper and is available now.

You can find out more about Isabel Wolff and her other books on her site. You can also find Isable's Guite To Writing & Getting Published here.

Review - Persuade Me by Juliet Archer

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR

 

Rick Wentworth is a gorgeous, wealthy, marine biologist living with his supermodel girlfriend in Australia. He's on his way to England for his book tour to publicise his novel, Sex in the Sea and the tabloids go into overdrive when soon after his arrival his girlfriend dumps him and he's single once again.

He's spent ten years trying to forget his first love, Anna Elliott, who he fell for during a hot summer when they were both working in France before going to university. He'd asked her to follow him to Australia, but her father and godmother persuaded her to take up her place in Cambridge and continue on the path her dead mother had always planned for her. He hasn't forgiven her for listening to her family and rejecting a future with him.

Dr Anna Elliot lectures in Russian Studies at Bath & Western University and lives in a flat in a converted house owned by her best friend and work colleague, Jenny and her disabled husband in Bath. She's independent and happy, but has never forgotten Rick and the time they spent together. She still misses her mother, but finds her pompous father, Sir Walter Elliot very trying. He can never resist the chance to mention he's also 8th Baronet of Kellynch. Her two sisters are also very different from Anna. Lisa is shallow and vain and very much like her father, and Mona who despite having two lovely little boys, spends her time feeling sorry for herself and bemoaning her lack of wealth and closeness in her marriage to Charles. 

Rick's sister and brother-in-law are about to open a garden centre in Kellynch and are neighbours to Mona's in-laws, the Musgroves. The two families meet up when Rick is staying with his sister and they're invited to a party at the Musgrove family's large home. Charles has two beautiful young sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, who take one look at Rick and decide to compete for his attentions. When out walking one day, Anna over hears Rick talking to Lou about her and begins to realize there is very little chance of him ever wanting to be with her again.

Slowly though they discover they still have feelings towards each other, but Rick is impulsive, hurt and unable to forget Anna's decision not to follow him all those years before. He resents that she was so easily persuaded to give him up by her family. She never bothered with him once he left England ten years before and he has no intention of allowing himself to get close to her again.   

This book is a wonderful contemporary adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, Persuasion and Juliet Archer cleverly manages to bring the original characters back to life in a believable and entertaining way. I thoroughly enjoyed not only the main characters, but also the minor ones, such as Cleopatra Cle, Mrs Clay in the original novel, and her association with Sir Walter.

Persuade Me is the second book in Juliet Archer's Darcy & Friends series where she re-tells Jane Austen's Persuasion and whether you know the original Jane Austen novel, or not, this is a wonderful book with yet another delicious Choc Lit hero at its core.

To celebrate the publication of Persuade Me (out now) and to be in with a chance to win a copy of this delightful book, please leave 'pick me' comment below. A winner will be chosen and announced next Thursday. 

You can find out more about Juliet Archer and her books here and you can follow her on Twitter @julietarcher

9/10

Review - The Legacy by Katherine Webb

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR     

This book follows two timelines. In the present, the sisters, Erica and Beth Calcott return to the house their harsh grandmother has left them in her Will. It's the place where they spent their childhood summers, where they secretly spent time with Dinny, a traveller, and their unpleasant cousin Henry. It's also a place where a tragedy happened that changed the course of their lives.

In 1902, we begin to follow Caroline's story. Caroline's parents are dead and she lives with her haughty aunt in New York high society. She falls in love and quickly marries Corin, a farmer who takes her to live miles from the nearest neighbour in a house where she is expected to cook and clean and mix with people she could never have imagined meeting before her marriage. They are in love, but life doesn't go quite according to Caroline's expectations.

In order for Erica and Beth to keep the house they've inherited, their grandmother has stipulated that both women have to make it their home and live there. Erica isn't frightened about the mystery behind Henry, but she is younger than Beth and can't remember everything that happened on that fateful day. Beth's whole life is marred by her past and she only goes to the house to sort out her grandmother's belongings because Erica has pressured her to do so.