Stalking Jack The Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco #BookReview

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord’s daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life.

Against her stern father’s wishes and society’s expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle’s laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.

The story’s shocking twists and turns will make this dazzling debut from author Kerri Maniscalco impossible to forget.

I was in the mood for reading some historical fiction and when I saw this novel about Jack The Ripper, well how could I resist? I’m also a big fan of the cover and reading the story I can say that the woman on the cover fits the story perfectly, she even made it easier for me to imagine Audrey Rose. 

There’s A LOT that I liked about this novel. First of all I loved how the author was not afraid to dive right into the story. The novel opens with an autopsy in Audrey Rose’s uncle Jonathan’s laboratory and just reading that first line about the moment before making the incision was enough to know that I was really going to enjoy the story and writing. The author inserted real photos of that period which gave the story a sense of authenticity, and afterwards I read in the afterword also a number of details about the Jack The Ripper murders that she tried to replicate in the story as well. 

I also loved how Audrey Rose didn’t want to fold to the Victorian standard expectations for a woman. I loved her fascination for the dead and how she’s adamant that she’s just as capable to perform a postmortem as a man. She has to walk a fine line, on the one hand she has to have tea parties and if she wants to wed soon she needs to be on her best behaviour, but on the other hand she sneaks away to assist her uncle, she doesn’t shy away from looking at Jack The Ripper’s havoc on his victims, she isn’t afraid to tell her mind and as an act of defiance further along she wears her riding gear.. when she’s not riding. She’s a perfect heroine and the exact character this novel needed!       

I’d say she’s the star of the show but that’s a lie because she has to share first place with Thomas, another student of her uncle. Thomas has mad deductions skills, I was seriously in awe and I don’t know if I loved the murder mystery or the courting going on between Audrey Rose and Thomas most. I’m tempted to go for the latter. The flirting (on a Victorian level) was so good and I loved Thomas’s pursuit and his little remarks. Apart from that they were also great as a detective duo and I think it’s no coincidence that Thomas addressing her often as Wadsworth always gave me major Sherlock and Watson vibes.

Last but not least, the story is of course about Jack The Ripper. Audrey Rose and her entourage are called upon and soon enough it doesn’t let her go. There are a few possible suspects but I figured out who Jack The Ripper was very soon, without any real grounds I admit but I still knew I had to be right on this and I was. Authors always follow the same formula and I have cracked that formula so it takes a lot more than this to surprise me, although she did try to create some doubt. While I knew who I didn’t completely understand the why though and finding out left me a little speechless. Now I wonder about the real Jack The Ripper even more!

Stalking Jack The Ripper is an original young adult novel with a great Jack The Ripper twist. I neither expected the morbid details nor the romance but I loved both and I do hope to read the next in the series in the future.

I bought a paperback of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

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Hold Back The Stars by Katie Khan #BookReview

Carys and Max have ninety minutes of air left. None of this was supposed to happen.

Adrift in space with nothing to hold on to but each other, Carys and Max can’t help but look back at the world they left behind. A world whose rules they couldn’t submit to, a place where they never really belonged; a home they’re determined to get back to because they’ve come too far to lose each other now.

Hold Back the Stars is a love story like no other.

Why oh why didn’t I read this sooner? Another one of my backlist and what a winner. Hold Back The Stars is a novel set in an utopian world. It’s a mix of romance, new adult genre with a sci-fi background (I don’t even have a category for that). Not really my kind of read right? Well things can change :-).

On the one hand Carys and Max are floating in space and trying everything they can to get back to the capsule. Time is ticking away and each chapter shows how many more minutes of oxygen they still have left.

In alternating chapters the author took me back to the beginning, where Carys and Max met. Carys drove shuttles and Max was working in his parents supermarket while also answering all sorts of questions about cooking as a chef. How Max became an astronaut and ended up in space was a mystery to me but the story was cleverly constructed and it actually made some kind of sense.

Max and Carys were in their early twenties when they fall in love. The thing is, in this utopian world the story is set in, they want the people to develop their individuality so therefore you can only become a couple at the age of 35. Yep the taste of forbidden love is the best.

I was completely on board with this new world, the rules, the different voivoids and the rotations to other voivoids every couple of years until it was time to settle down.

The author is a star (yes I couldn’t not say it) and I can’t believe it’s her first novel. There are several topics inserted into the story that are stepping stones for contemplation, about family issues and personal choices, and of course if a real utopia can exist.

The ending has everything you want and the lead up to it lets the reader take a peek at other possible scenarios how it could have played out. Cari’s life without Max, or Max’s life without Cari,.. you’ll have to see in the end what the scenario is that the author picked. If you ask me then she picked the right one but it goes straight through the heart!

This novel had the perfect mix and was a joy to read. Forbidden love has never felt so good. Also what an absolutely beautiful quote is this:

“The thing about first love, Cari, is that it breaks you. It changes everything about who you are for the next person.”

Hold Back The Stars was an amazing story with so much to give. At first I was hung up on their past lives more but in the end you know them so well and it catches up and I was hanging on to those moments in space and hoping so much for a miracle.

I’m definitely adding her other novel, The Light Between Us, to my readlist!

Oh by the way, good to know that Hold Back the Stars is in the works at studio Lionsgate, to be directed by Justin Baldoni (Five Feet Apart) from a screenplay by Christy Hall (I Am Not Okay With This), produced by Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen (Strange Things and Arrival).

There’s work to do for some of you I believe, you better read the novel before you watch the movie! It’s only 1.99p at the moment btw.

I bought a paperback copy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

Lovely Vicious (book 1) by Sara Wolf #BookReview

Seventeen-year-old Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, nine weeks, and five days, and after what happened last time, she intends to keep it that way. Since then she’s lost eighty-five pounds, gotten four streaks of purple in her hair, and moved to Buttcrack-of-Nowhere, Ohio, to help her mom escape a bad relationship.

All the girls in her new school want one thing—Jack Hunter, the Ice Prince of East Summit High. Hot as an Armani ad, smart enough to get into Yale, and colder than the Arctic, Jack Hunter’s never gone out with anyone. Sure, people have seen him downtown with beautiful women, but he’s never given high school girls the time of day. Until Isis punches him in the face.

Jack’s met his match. Suddenly everything is a game.

The goal: Make the other beg for mercy.

The game board: East Summit High.

The reward: Something neither of them expected.

/

Novel number 300-something of my backlist and I’m ashamed to say I actually chose it as my next read because I confused it with another novel that I’d been meaning to read and clearly don’t have in my library (Truly Devious btw) Vicious, devious, you can see how got it mixed up right? Another funny thing about this novel is that Sara Wolf made it into a trilogy and the new title of this book is actually Love Me Never. Honestly if I’d have seen that title with that new cover I’d not have touched it. I know it’s one of my flaws and I’m happy I was oblivious because it turned out not such a bad read. I read it in a day!

What I enjoyed most of all about this novel were all the words and comments that came out of Isis Blake’s mouth. The writing style – the snide remarks especially – was very entertaining and it really made me smile a lot.

Isis makes an enemy of Jack Hunter, the school’s heart throb because he’s not at all interested when the friend she just made, Kayla, throws herself at his feet at a party and he makes that painfully clear. Isis doesn’t stand for it and demands an apology for the way he treated her but he isn’t giving in. She steps it up and then his retaliation made my heart pitter patter but unfortunately I found the next moves of Isis taking it quite (too) far. The romance is definitely not instant although you can feel there’s something between them.

Underneath this confident, battle-armour Isis there’s another side of her that left her wounded. There are layers to both Isis and Jack which bring more serious themes to the story and in the end they really pulled at my heartstrings. It ends with a cliffhanger so be aware that it’ll leave you wanting to know more. Overall, I have absolutely no regrets picking this one up, even when it wasn’t my intention.

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

Love and Other Human Errors by Bethany Clift #BookReview

A book synopsis is fundamentally ridiculous. How can I possibly convey, in only 100 words, the events of the past year and their impact on my perfectly ordered existence?

It is insufficient space to accurately detail how I was blackmailed into demonstrating my flawless algorithm to find a soulmate, despite having no desire for one.

In my former life I avoided trivial human connections. I was alone, accomplished and brilliant.

Unfortunately, that solitary and driven woman no longer exists.

My name is Indiana Dylan and this is the extraordinary account of how I fell in love.

There: 100 words exactly.

The lovely pink cover was one of the reasons I decided to read this novel. The fact that it’s been getting really high ratings and was only 99p closed the deal.

This is a story about love and the shortcut to find it. Indiana has created an app called Tru who finds your true soul mate on the basis of more than your interests. The algorithm she wrote knows to find the client’s habits, preferences, everything there is to know. JaneDoe is the company she tries to sell it to but they require proof that it really works so she has to work together with manager Lina (who puts work before love) and IT guy Jack (who lost the love of his life). Indiana/Indi doesn’t want love in her life but there’s a lot at stake as Indi stands to lose her house and the new secret project she’s working on. The app has to work, she knows it does because she never fails so she agrees to prove it to JaneDoe.

I loved how completely different the main characters were but the side characters were just as important if not even more. Peggy – Indi’s assistant – seems more human than Indi herself and the homeless Frank and his dog Alan who take up residence at the entrance of Indi’s building show such humanity and kindness that I literally cried for them. They left quite an impression and are the ones who really stole my heart in a flash.

The characters all make different but important life changes in this novel and I really enjoyed the evolution the characters went through. Indi is socially awkward for a very long time and not easy to connect with at first but she takes baby steps to being more human and showing more heart and as she changes I too really started to warm up to her after being initially drawn towards the other characters at first.

Indiana’s soul mate is waiting for her but as in all romance novels there’s the necessary bumps in the road to love. A bit of a predictable ending but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. The author inserted enough originality into the novel to give it that little extra. Even though the romance level of the novel was different than expected, present but certainly not dominating, this novel certainly has heart and some valuable advice for the ones who care to listen.

I bought a copy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

Summer at the Cornish Café by Phillipa Ashley #BookReview

Demi doesn’t expect her summer in Cornwall to hold anything out of the ordinary. As a waitress, working all hours to make ends meet, washing dishes and serving ice creams seems to be as exciting as the holiday season is about to get.

That’s until she meets Cal Penwith. An outsider, like herself, Cal is persuaded to let Demi help him renovate his holiday resort, Kilhallon Park. Set above an idyllic Cornish cove, the once popular destination for tourists has now gone to rack and ruin. During the course of the Cornish summer, Demi makes new friends – and foes – as she helps the dashing and often infuriating Cal in his quest. Working side by side, the pair grow close, but Cal has complications in his past which make Demi wonder if he could ever truly be interested in her.

Demi realises that she has finally found a place she can call home. But as the summer draws to a close, and Demi’s own reputation as an up and coming café owner starts to spread, she is faced with a tough decision . . .

/ 

I hate to say this but after reading a few really great romance novels this one felt a bit meh. Personally I felt that the love story lacked some real romance.

Demi and her dog Mitch are out of a job thanks to the town’s villain Mawghan and they’re sleeping rough until her one and only friend tells her that Cal Penwith is looking for hired help with restoring the holiday cottages at Kilhallon Park. She gets the job and while they’re working hard side by side Demi starts to fall for this moody handsome man. He’s still visiting his ex-girlfriend a lot though, even though she’s engaged now, so Demi comes to the conclusion that she needs to tamp down her feelings for him even if that’s easier said than done.

Summer At The Cornish Café was a nice read about big dreams with a bit of will they/won’t they get together but there was no real tension or attraction building between them. I felt it was mainly a one-sided thing from Demi‘s side. Saying that Cal is an enigma is almost an understatement. There’s really no telling what was going on in his head or what he was feeling (almost like a real dude so points for being realistic but also very frustrating at times). He’s also keeping the past three years he spent abroad under lock and key and it’s clear that something traumatized him but unfortunately I never found out what it was. It was only after I finished the novel that I discovered this was the first one of a trilogy so that will probably play its part in the sequel. Unfortunately Cal didn’t really grow on me and I didn’t see his appeal because I simply never really got to know him. I think I prefer the dog Mitch (I still don’t know what breed he is though) who is a lovely steady presence in the novel too over him.

I enjoyed reading about the restoration and the lovely Cornish setting but as you might already suspect, I won’t be continuing with this series.

I received a free paperback copy of this novel in a giveaway. This is my honest opinion.

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas #BookReview

A wedding in Spain. The most infuriating man. Three days to convince your family you’re actually in love. .

Catalina Martín desperately needs a date to her sister’s wedding. Especially when her little white lie about her American boyfriend has spiralled out of control. Now everyone she knows – including her ex-boyfriend and his fiancée – will be there.

She only has four weeks to find someone willing to cross the Atlantic for her and aid in her deception. NYC to Spain is no short flight and her family won’t be easy to fool. . . But even then, when Aaron Blackford – the 6’4″, blue-eyed pain in the arse – offers to step in, she’s not tempted even for a second. Never has there been a more aggravating, blood-boiling and insufferable man.

But Catalina is desperate and as the wedding gets closer the more desirable an option Aaron Blackford becomes. . .

I couldn’t help myself indulging in one of my guilty pleasures, an enemies-to-lovers, fake-dating romance.

I’m going to beat you to it so yes, it does show similarities to The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, some might even find it too similar but I don’t get why would they be disappointed, I couldn’t be happier. When I had finished reading that first office romance novel I wanted more of it, much more in fact, and my prayers were answered when I discovered The Spanish Love Deception.

This novel had everything I wished for, the slow burn, the attraction and I adore novels with major love declarations. I want to be cocooned in love and feel the emotion dripping from the pages. Elena Armas certainly made the characters say the right things, they would melt the coldest heart.

The only small fault I found in this novel is that hating is rather a strong word to use this time, Lina shows some hostility towards Aaron but I never sensed any retaliation from his side, or anything that made me dislike him. Okay, maybe the fact that Aaron’s tall was also repeated a few times too many but other than that I had a pretty good image how this Greek God with blue eyes looked like. I fell for his gentle and caring character even more than for his features though. I believe Lina was a bit naive when she didn’t know if what they were saying and doing was fake or real but I could only root for her to open her heart and let Aaron in.

This is an existing trope done so many times over so I’m not going to say it’s the most surprising novel but there were a few special touches to it, like Lina being Spanish (I loved the sparse Spanish spoken here and there) and part of the story taking place with her family in Spain as well as the topic of her experience of having a relationship with someone in a position of power. It explained Lina’s fear and struggle in the present and made me more understanding why she was holding back.

Overall a great debut with a HEA (that scene in Seattle!) that was more emotional than I expected. I’ve put the follow-up The American Roommate on my wishlist to read next!

I received a free ecopy of this novel from the publisher Simon & Schuster via Netgalley. This is my honest opinion.

The Key To My Heart by Lia Louis #BookReview

Can you ever really find the one after ‘the one’?

Some people spend their whole lives trying to find the one. But Natalie had found him – and married him. And then Russ died.

Two years ago, her whole world was shattered. Still now, she feels like she’s trying to piece her broken heart back together, one day at a time.

But then she finds a sheet of music – one that only Russ would know – in the piano stool in St. Pancras station where she’s secretly been playing for the last few months.

For the first time, Natalie realizes that maybe life does still hold a little magic. And with every note she plays, she feels as if she’s unlocking another fragment of her heart…

But will she ever truly find love again after she’d already found forever?

/

When you ask me to list a few romance authors I love reading, Lia Louis is definitely on that list. There are not many authors who can give me a book high but that’s how I feel right now. I absolutely fell for Dear Emmie Blue and The Key to my Heart is a very close second. This novel gave me a bad case of emophilia (it’s a real condition!) but it only concerns fictional characters so far.

The Key To My Heart is about Natalie’s life after having lost her husband two years earlier. People feel she should have moved on by now but Natalie is stuck in a space in her head between the past and the future, she’s struggling to cope alone with some things, some of a practical nature and some more emotional. She doesn’t know for instance what to do with the cottage they bought together and were going to renovate, nor how to tell her friends she’s not ready to date anyone.

I loved the mysterious element in the novel of someone leaving sheet music in the piano seat at the train station. It was very clever how the author wrote this novel so it wasn’t obvious who it was, not even to me. I enjoyed how the music was a lifeline and made her open up. She’s on a quest to find out who left it and why (both were quite surprising!) and while she’s sharing her findings with her friend Shauna who works at the coffee shop Goode’s, Tom The Target and her girlfriends, she’s slowly healing as well and getting her appetite for life back. It was such an original approach and if I ever find a piano in a train station it’ll certainly make me smile from now on.

There’s lots of incredibly wonderful banter in this novel that starts almost as soon as I opened it, so the connection between Natalie and one of the male characters was immediate and the possibility where this could lead was already dreamed up in my head. But she’s not interested in a romance and he’s scared of love and crocodiles so instead they become great friends. His support was great and I saw how she begun to change. Of course there’s also another swoonworthy man that crosses Natalie’s path and he understands her grief better than anyone else, having lost a family member himself. Would he be the one who makes her heart full again? I actually had my heart set a little bit on the first guy but they were both adding to the story and supporting Natalie in a beautiful way.

Lia Louis knows how to struck a chord with her writing. A big part of the novel is about Natalie’s friendship with the people around her and her connection with Tom and Joe, and that alone gave me a warm and good feeling but in the end there’s a very touching and epic scene that totally got to me. She definitely found the key to MY heart.

I feel I can’t do this novel justice with my review so forget all I said and just remember I can’t recommend this novel enough!

I bought a paperback copy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid #BookReview

In her 20s, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure. On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her 30s, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness. That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants while trying to protect the ones she loves. But who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Another novel from my backlist as One True Loves was published in 2016. I bought an ecopy of it in 2017, long before she became even more of a bestselling writer with the hyped novel of The Seven Husband of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six and I picked it up ‘now’ because I wanted to read it before watching the movie adaptation of this novel. If I’d watch it first then I wouldn’t make it a priority to read it and who knows in what year, if any, I’d get to it then.

There is much to love in this novel and I highlighted so many quotes hitting home, yet I still didn’t fall in love with it. Emotions run all through this novel but I didn’t always feel emotional myself as it was quite clear for me what Emma needed to do and it frustrated me sometimes when she wasn’t thinking along my lines.

The novel had a good structure. The opening chapter sets the scene where Sam and Emma are with her parents enjoying a meal in a restaurant, then she gets the call that her missing – presumed dead – husband is actually alive. The first part shows the encompassing love between Jesse and Emma, the second part defines how she meets Sam again after two years of grief and how they fall in love.

What makes this novel so compelling is the dilemma. Everyone will ask themselves whether she should be with Jesse again or continue with Sam. I did love the dilemma that Emma’s faced with even though it wasn’t so much of a dilemma for me because I was already those two steps ahead of her and had thought exactly what was about to come into her head. You’d probably enjoy this story most if you just let the emotions wash over you.

Both men are great guys and they both love Emma deeply, there’s no denying that. I think I liked them even more than I liked her if I’m honest. I know that Emma struggled but I didn’t always agree with the way she dealt with the situation. The fact that she tells one guy that she chooses the other one but still sleeps with him ‘one last time’ was frankly incomprehensible to me and made me question if she should be with either one of them. No, just no!

That being said, I did enjoy how the novel sets out to explore true love and the resolution is quite valuable, something we all need to be reminded of or simply informed of and a life wisdom I’m happy to carry with me from now on.

One True Loves was a bittersweet, emotional story about one woman searching for the love of her life. I can’t wait to see this movie now!

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

PS Watch out for my battle of book covers because I found 5 different covers for this one and the latest one (publication 2022) is BE-AU-TI-FUL.

Swear on This Life by Renée Carlino #BookReview

When a bestselling debut novel from mysterious author J. Colby becomes the literary event of the year, Emiline reads it reluctantly. As an adjunct writing instructor at UC San Diego with her own stalled literary career and a bumpy long-term relationship, Emiline isn’t thrilled to celebrate the accomplishments of a young and gifted writer.

Yet from the very first page, Emiline is entranced by the story of Emerson and Jackson, two childhood best friends who fall in love and dream of a better life beyond the long dirt road that winds through their impoverished town in rural Ohio.

That’s because the novel is patterned on Emiline’s own dark and desperate childhood, which means that “J. Colby” must be Jase: the best friend and first love she hasn’t seen in over a decade. Far from being flattered that he wrote the novel from her perspective, Emiline is furious that he co-opted her painful past and took some dramatic creative liberties with the ending.

The only way she can put her mind at ease is to find and confront “J. Colby,” but is she prepared to learn the truth behind the fiction?

Another one from the backlist. Swear on This Life was published in 2016 and the number of raving reviews brought it to my attention at the time so it’s been on my ereader for quite a while. I’m kind of sad that I don’t get any more paperbacks from publishers since Brexit but finding a gem like this in my library does make me feel very happy on the other hand. I suddenly found myself a new favourite author!

Swear on This Life is the first novel I read by Renée Carlino and it’s an amazingly heartfelt story. Emeline reads about her own childhood in a novel called All The Roads Between and every time the timeline changed to the past I prepared myself for the emotional impact. Her childhood was a story of neglect and abuse but also of great friendship, even the first signs of love.

Jase (Jason) lived next door and was in a similar situation yet he was always positive and together they got through everything, her father’s drinking problem, his mother’s drug addiction. They had such wonderful moments together and seemed to be joined at the hip, yet in the present day there is no sign of Jase in Emeline’s life, they are not together and I couldn’t flip these pages fast enough to find out how they became separated and if they would find their way to each other again.

Emeline does take a looong time to end the novel within the novel but when she finally did I felt my heart leap. Even though I couldn’t understand it at first, I absolutely loved why Jase changed parts of the real story (and I’m not talking about him giving himself abs in his fictionalised story), it was just such perfect thinking.

When you wish you had the paperback of a novel in your library instead of an ecopy and you want to reread a novel immediately after you finished it, you know it’s worth five stars or more. I found such a wonderful bittersweet story between these pages and Jase is the real star of this duo in my eyes, he’s definitely book boyfriend material and it’s all due to his character. For fans of Colleen Hoover and Dani Atkins, I highly recommend!

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion. 

Puzzle Girl by Rachael Featherstone #BookReview @WRITERachael @AccentPress

Love is a riddle waiting to be solved…

Clued-up career girl Cassy Brookes has life under control until one disastrous morning changes everything. When she finds herself stuck in a doctor’s surgery, a cryptic message left in a crossword magazine sends her on a search to find the mysterious puzzle-man behind it. Cassy is soon torn between tracking down her elusive dream guy, and outwitting her nightmare workmate, the devious Martin. Facing a puzzling love-life, will she ever be able to fit the pieces together and discover the truth behind this enigmatic man?

/

Puzzle Girl was a pleasant surprise, in the best way possible. I don’t know why I was hesitant to pick this one up but I think the lovely cover made me think it would be too light of a read for me (sorry cover designer) but I was so wrong, I had a really good time in Cassy’s presence.

I love novels where there’s written interaction between characters and they often score high for me (think The Flatshare or Dear Emmie Blue) but this one had an additional bonus of the ‘mystery man’ with whom Cassy makes these written exchanges, and I quite possibly liked this even more.

It was so much fun to see all of the excuses she had to come up with to gain access again and again to the puzzle book at the Threadneedle Walk-in Centre. Just imagining seeing the reaction of Janet, the receptionist of the clinic every time Cassy showed up again made me chuckle every single time. There were a few stories in the sidelines too that were also quite entertaining which involved her bestie Dan (a blend between Joey and Chandler of Friends) who decides to move in with her, Cassy’s attempts to make a good impression with her boss and their potential new client MediaTech and her strife with work colleague Martin. I had to give it to her, whatever is thrown at Cassy she never gives up, it made me love her even a little bit more.

Cassy works as an Account Director at a digital marketing company named Holeywells and even though her job is one of the focal points of the novel where much goes wrong, and as interesting as it sounds being a marketing strategist I was happy that I was never bored by actually having to listen to an entire pitch. The competition between Cassy and Martin and her feelings of animosity whenever he does something that puts her into a bad light were a great part of the story. There were times it reminded me of another novel that I loved this year and I was happy to find some similarities.

Maybe the outcome didn’t surprise me much but it didn’t really bother me, the story had enough drive that I never felt there wasn’t something else to discover. Cassy certainly discovers a lot about herself by the end of the novel and I do love a character having some introspection. And in the end all I wanted was for puzzle-girl to finally meet her dream puzzle-man 🙂.

I underestimated how much I would enjoy Puzzle Girl when I started it. If you’re looking for a fun summer romance in an office setting this is the perfect novel to escape into.

I received a free paperback copy of this novel in a giveaway (I can’t remember who from but I received four paperbacks a few years ago). This is my honest opinion.