BOOK REVIEW: Jill Mansell - The Unpredictable Consequences of Love

"In the idyllic seaside town of St Carys, Sophie is putting the past firmly behind her.

When Josh arrives in St Carys to run the family hotel, he can't understand why Sophie has zero interest in letting any man into her life. He also can't understand how he's been duped into employing Sophie's impulsive friend Tula, whose crush on him is decidedly unrequited.

St Carys has more than its fair share of characters, including the charming but utterly feckless surfer Riley Bryant, who has a massive crush on Tula. Riley's aunt is superstar author Marguerite Marshall. And Marguerite has designs on Josh's grandfather...who in turn still adores his glamorous ex-wife, Dot...

Just how many secrets can one seaside town keep?"

I am yet to read a Jill Mansell book that I didn’t like or I struggled to get into… I honestly think that everything she writes turns to gold. This book is one of many fine examples of how fantastic a writer Jill Mansell truly is – it’s funny, captivating, touching, gripping, and just generally wonderful. I'd been wanting to read it for ages so I was so excited when it was available on BookBridgr (if you're not signed up to the site, definitely check it out - it's fab!)

It follows the lives of a few select characters in St Carys, a wonderfully gorgeous seaside town where, in all honesty, I would want to move to and spend the rest of my days there because it sounds heavenly. The lives of these characters intertwine which makes it feel more ‘together’ as a story because you’re not simply reading about a whole host of random characters – I dunno, it made it feel more jointed for me.

The characters range from Riley who’s a bit of a ladies man who doesn’t want to work, just play, to Sophie whose refusal to let a man become part of her life is something that bemuses those who know her but not her darkest secret. All of the characters are well developed and help, in their own way, to bring the story together. They’re very three dimensional and have real depth to them, some more than others such as Sophie, Riley, and Marguerite. It makes for a very gripping read, I must say.

Without giving too much away, Sophie is a woman who is very focussed on her work and seems to have no time for men in her life. However, it later becomes clear that that’s something she’s deliberately orchestrated due to previous events in her life. Josh takes a shine to her and wants to bring her out of her shell and what unfolds from then on out is a wonder to read. Their friendship/relationship has funny moments, sad moments, and complete ‘COME ON, YOU TWO! SORT IT OUT!’ moments. My personal favourite would be the latter but they’re all really good, I swear.

There’s more to it than a standard love story; there’s surrounding drama and lots of twists and turns. You won’t be able to stop turning the pages and, more to the point, you won’t want to. You want to watch this people grow and come together. You’ll be surprised by how things turn out, that’s for sure.

Paperback: http://fave.co/1mgeXeK

Kindle: http://fave.co/1mgf1uX

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think?

About Jill: Jill Mansell lives with her partner and children in Bristol, and writes full time.

Actually that's not true; she watches TV, eats fruit gums, admires the rugby players training in the sports field behind her house, and spends hours on the internet Tweeting and marvelling at how many other writers have blogs. Only when she's completely run out of displacement activities does she actually write. 

Follow Jill on Twitter at @JillMansell.

BOOK REVIEW: Nicola Doherty – If I Could Turn Back Time

“What if you found The One, then lost him again?
Or not so much lost him as became the neurotic, needy girlfriend from hell. The girl who tried to make him choose between her and his job, and got seriously paranoid about his relationship with his best female friend...
Zoe knows she doesn't deserve another chance with David. But if there's the tiniest possibility of making things right, she'll snatch it. Even if it means breaking the laws of physics to do so...”

 The story starts with a character waking up the morning after with the hangover from hell. She doesn’t really know where she is or how she got that – all she knows is last night was a mental one, by anybody’s standards, and that, wherever she is, it’s ridiculously hot considering it’s winter. It turns out she’s in David’s room which, from the blurb, we can guess is her ex-boyfriend. Is this just a terrible hangover or something more..?

We’re then taken back 12 hours to when the events of the night start to unfold and we’re given the opportunity to learn about the narrator – we learn she’s called Zoé and that she’s clearly hung up on her ex. After a long day at work (she works in retail), she decides to follow a tradition a customer told her about; making a wish in the shop window.

We then follow her journey as she pieces together what’s happened and tries to correct her previous mistakes in order to change the outcome – and not necessarily just to do with her relationship with David.

There’s a little bit of a love triangle and, though the characters involved might not be a surprise, the outcome and the relationships that unfold are an absolute delight to read about. Let’s face it, most of us, at some point, have been dumped by somebody and spent months moping about and wanting them back, saying we’d do anything to get them back or we’ve at least known someone like that. Either way, it helps to make this book all the more enjoyable.

The characters are well-written and the relationships/friendships are well explored and well developed. The way that they interact with each other is exactly how I’ve known people in this situation to behave so it’s very much like reading about friends in this situation – just with a bit of added time travel!

I like that there’s a bit of a moral to the book – that even if you could go back and change things, it doesn’t mean they will go as you plan because you can’t really plan for life. Things happen, people come and go, and it’s all about how you react to certain things.

We watch as Zoe rebuilds (or doesn’t, depending how you look at it) her relationship with David but also how she cheats her way into the job she’s always wanted after having been denied it before she jumped back in time. She has the upper hand in a lot of the situations but that doesn’t necessarily mean she gets what she wants out of it. She learns that maybe some things don’t work out for a reason in life and love.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and could have spent forever reading about it and watching relationships develop and fall apart. The structure was lovely, the language used was spot on, and it was incredibly light and easy reading.

This is Nicola’s second novel and, after reading this, I’ll definitely be checking out her first -  The Out of Office Girl.

eBooks/Kindle: The Book People | Amazon | Waterstones

Paperback: The Book People | Amazon | Waterstones

*I was lucky enough to be sent this via BookBridgr so thank you BookBridgr and Frances Gough!