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May 24

Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop By Abby Clements

Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop‘Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop’ is Abby Clements’ second novel.

When Anna and Imogen unexpectedly inherit their grandmother Vivien’s ice cream parlour, it turns both their lives upside down. The Brighton shop is a seafront institution, but while it’s big on charm, it’s low on customers. If the sisters don’t turn things around quickly, their grandmothers legacy will disappear forever. With summer looming, the sisters devise a plan to return Vivien’s to its former glory. Rather than sell up, they will train up and the make the parlour the newest destination on the South Coast foodie map. While Imogen watches the shop, Anna flies to Italy to attend a gourmet ice cream making course, but as she works shoulder to shoulder with some of the best chefs in the industry, Anna finds that love can blossom in the most unexpected of places.

I loved this book and found it to be a lovely and light hearted story that is perfect to curl up to as a holiday read. The lead characters are sisters Anna and Imogen and are two different sides of the coin that make for interesting reading. Anna is the older home bird of the sisters, enjoys settled life with her boyfriend Jon and his little boy Alfie whereas Imogen is free spirited girl that enjoys exploring the world and having no commitments, but their lives take a sudden change of direction when they are left in charge of their grandmother’s ice cream shop. With no experience of managing a shop or knowing how to make ice cream, the two girls embark on a adventure together, proving to themselves, their family and the people around them that they can make a success of it.

The chapters alternate between the sisters, which makes the story especially interesting as they both battle with inner struggles to make it the shop success, dealing with love and family issues gives the story a nice realistic feel. The story is beautifully descriptive and vivid, as Anna travels to Italy on an ice cream making course, the descriptions of the country and the foods she encounters can regularly make for mouthwatering reading.

With one of the prettiest book covers of 2013, ‘Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop’ is sweetly written and entertaining, with charming characters, and an absolute overindulgence of ice creams, sweets and all things tasty which makes this story the perfect summer treat.

You can buy amazon_link id=”B00B83PO5O” target=”_blank” ]Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop on Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.

May 22

Billy and Me By Giovanna Fletcher

Billy and Me‘Billy and Me’ is Giovanna Fletcher’s first novel.

Sophie May has a secret, a secret that she has kept hidden for most of her life. Having this secret meant that she had to give up ideas of university, travelling and instead works in a little teashop and lives with her mum. But then she meets gorgeous Billy Buskins, an actor who has ambitions to make it to the top. And when they fall in love, Sophie is whisked away from her comfortable life into Billy’s glamorous but ruthless world. Their relationship throws Sophie into the spotlight after many years of shying away from attention. Can she handle the constant attention that comes with being with Billy? And most of all, is she ready for her secret heartbreak to be exposed and shared with the nation?

May I say that I simply adored ‘Billy and Me’ this book had my full attention for twenty hours and I couldn’t put it down until I had the book finally finished. And then when when I came to the end, even though it left me with a warm fuzzy feeling of happiness, I also felt a wave of sadness wash over me, as I closed the final page of my Billy and Sophie adventure. What a splendidly adorable couple, their relationship oozed of love, fun and friendship, that it was impossible not to fall in love with the young lovers.

Sophie, the young protagonist of the story is such a sweet character, warmhearted and caring. She radiates warmth in her lead role in the book, working in the teashop. With her best friend and owner Molly, a elderly kind hearted woman who enjoys a good gossip, she takes Sophie under her wing and through their blossoming friendship, she gives the young woman the much needed confidence boost that makes her desirable to Billy, the young heart throb. I loved Sophie, I thoroughly enjoyed following the adventure through her eyes, as she left her quiet, reclusive life behind, came out of her shell and turned into a independent young woman. Having spent most of her life shackled with guilt, she finally leaves her past to rest, she lets go of her inhibitions and begins to fully appreciate the world around the her, with the aid of Billy and Molly.

It’s hard not to fall in love with Billy, a typical cheeky choppy with a heart of gold and a romantic side, their first date in particular made for quite envious reading, if I’m honest!

With the addition of more serious scenes where Sophie, regularly feels threatened by the interest of the media and paparazzi and the fact that so many women lust over her boyfriend, it gives an interesting insight into the world of celebrities and just the amount of pressure and scrutiny that they are under. This also gives the story a bit of an autobiographical element to it, as Giovanna is the wife of Tom Fletcher from McFly.

Beautifully written, the story is gloriously romantic and also wonderfully innocent, a story of love and friendship, we join the young couple as they embark on their big adventure together where they experience the ups and downs of a high profile relationship. An absolute triumph of a debut, ‘Billy and Me’ is a delight to read, heartwarming with wonderful characters, a picturesque setting of a small quaint village, packed with sweet delights, this book is definately one of my favourites of 2013.

You can buy Billy and Me on Amazon and is available to buy from good bookshops.

May 21

The Juliette Society By Sasha Grey

The Juliette Society‘The Juliette Society’ is Sasha Grey’s debut novel.

Catherine, a blossoming film student whose sexuality has recently been stirred, finds herself drawn into a secret club where the world’s most powerful people meet to explore their deepest often darkest sexual fantasies. But even as these new experiences open intense new pleasures for Catherine, they also threaten to destroy everything that she holds dear.

OK, I’ll be honest I didn’t like this book. I don’t like writing that as I fully understand the time and effort that is involved with writing a book, but with ‘The Juliette Society’ there was nothing about it that warmed to me, well the cover is very pretty but also misleading as ‘The Juliette Society’ is hardly mentioned in the book. Try as I might to find a positive to the book, I found it hard. Although there were occasions when I liked Catherine when she wasn’t absorbed in herself or her fantasies, she was actually quite a sweet girl

I found the story, dark and occasionally twisted as the story explored the darker thoughts of Catherine, her passions, desires as she longed for a more fruitful, explorative life and often she escaped on wild tangents of thoughts, that initially made for shocking reading but then it became quite repetitive in parts and felt the sole reason behind this book was simply too shock, but in the end I just didn’t find it a pleasant reading experience. Having reading ‘The Fifty Shades of Grey’ series and particularly enjoyed the ‘Fire After Dark’ series, I have come to the conclusion that I no longer have a desire to read this genre anymore but for all those who are still enjoying the current trend of Erotic Fiction books and are eager to read more about the darker side of sex and love then ‘The Juliette Society’ maybe just be the book for you but sadly this was not the case for me.

You can buy The Juliette Society on Amazon and is available from good bookshops.

May 20

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My Life In Black and White by Kim Izzo

My Life in Black and White‘My Life in Black and White’ is the second book by Kim Izzo.

Tabloid reporter Clara Bishop feels that life has served her far too slaps and not nearly enough kisses. When she is suddenly jilted by her philandering husband, she follows him to London, determined to win him back. Armed with a suitcase of her grandmothers clothes that she inherited, Clara discovers that clothes really make the woman. Dressed to kill, she adopts a new femme fatale persona and sets out to seek revenge. But on her road to realisation, Clara discovers an unfinished film script that sheds light on her grandmothers mysterious death many years ago. As Clara’s life is transported into a living, breathing film from the fifties, she discovers not only the secrets of her grandmothers but the chance to write her own ending too.

‘My Life in Black and White’ is an absolutely captivating story that had me enthralled from the very start. The story is wonderfully written, transferring from 1952 to present time the story is seen through the eyes of Clara Bishop as she relays her story to a policeman recalling her unlikely adventure in London. Clara, plays the unfortunate femme fatale, determined not to give up on her failed marriage, she follows her husband to London but what transpires is far from the reunion that Clara longs for. With a single suitcase of her grandmothers clothes, a former femme fatale actress, Clara has no choice but to dress like her grandmother in the city and it’s not just Clara’s appearance that changes. Suddenly her life becomes a film noir and she has the female lead, in a world where the year is 1952 and films are created in black and white, Clara herself becomes a different character, she becomes dynamic, confident and sexy as uncovers secrets of grandmothers life.

I loved ‘The Jane Austen Marriage Manual’ but I adored ‘My Life in Black and White’, I thought it was a unique concept, that certainly made for a gripping story. Clara is a great lead character, as the story develops, she changes from a meek, eager to please woman to quite a cocky lady that certainly made for entertaining reading as she left a trail of men in her path.

Beautifully written with fast paced dialogue and breathtaking costumes, ‘My Life in Black and White’ is a witty and glamorous story where hell has no fury like a woman scorned!

You can buy My Life in Black and White on Amazon from will be available to buy from good bookshops.

May 15

The Ice Cream Girls By Dorothy Koomson

The Ice Cream Girls‘The Ice Cream Girls’ is the eighth book by Dorothy Koomson.

As teenagers, Poppy Carlisle and Serena Gorringe were the only witnesses to a tragic event. Amid heated public debate, the two seemingly glamorous teens were dubbed ‘The Ice Cream Girls’ by the press and were dealt with by the courts. Years later, having led completely different lives, Poppy is keen to set the record straight about what really happened while Serena wants no-one to in her present to know about her past. But some secrets will not stay buried and if theirs is revealed, everything will become a living hell all over again.

‘The Ice Cream Girls’ is the first book that I have read by Dorothy Koomson and I have to say that right from the very start, I thought it was a wonderfully compelling story that had me captivated from the start.

Serena and Poppy, the lead protagonists were such a pair of strong and fiercely independent women, that I immediately found them intriguing. I warmed to Poppy in particular, having spent most of her life in prison, she is a hard, insecure character who finds it difficult to trust people and longs for her parents forgiveness and love to return. In a series of flashbacks seen from the perspectives of both Serena and Poppy, we join them as they reminisce on the lives that they used to have and as they both tried to escape the memories of their pasts which haunted them on a daily basis. Life for Serena has been a little bit easier for her, now married with a family, she finally feels secure in her life, until Poppy is released from prison and treks Serena down, insisting she is innocent and imprisoned wrongly, she wants Serena to admit to a crime, that Serena maintains that she never committed.

This story is truly gritty and disturbing, touching on the subjects of abuse of all levels, mental, physical and sexual. It embarks on the remarkable and troublesome friendship of Poppy and Serena as they both fall for the same man. The man, Marcus is an absolutely heinous character that I disliked with such a passion that I actually worried myself. Sexist, abusive and manipulative, his actions and words regularly shocked me to the core as he played the two teenage girls against each other.

A story of love, abuse, heartache and innocence until proven guilty, ‘The Ice Cream Girls’ is a dark, intense and definately a thought provoking story that will have you hooked and with fantastic unexpected twist at the end that will leave you wondering if you ever really know those closest to you.

You can buy The Ice Cream Girls on Amazon and is available to buy from good bookshops.

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