Category: Contemporary

‘Breathless’ – Jennifer Niven

Thank you, Jennifer Niven, for writing the book that I needed as a teenager, and showing that, even though the results may not be exactly what you want, you have to be open to the possibilities life offers.

Breathless starts slowly, and while I was enjoying it I didn’t think it was going to cause the emotional gut-punch it did. It’s a book about love, learning to accept yourself and to have the confidence to take risks as they hurt but can bring wonderful things.

The main character in this, Claude, is a curious character, who definitely grew on me. She starts the book in a fairly safe place with certain expectations, then learns that things don’t always go to plan…but it can be okay. She is definitely feeling uncertain as she’s about to head to college, her best friend has started a relationship she didn’t know about and things are changing/she’s losing control of the things happening around her. Her summer begins in an unsettling way, with her parents announcing they are going to split up and she is expected to spend the summer on an island with her mother.

Cut off from everything she knows, this actually opens Claude to the possibility of new experiences. She takes solace in the immediacy of the wonderful natural environment around her, she learns to ride a bike and she starts a relationship with someone who changes her in ways she couldn’t imagine.

It would be so easy to reduce this to a summer romance category and make what we watch between Claude and Miah seem trite. That would, I think, be missing the point. It might not be exactly what we’d wish for either, but in its own way it’s beautiful.

I will be urging everyone to read this upon its September 2020 release, and would like to thank the publishers, Penguin, and NetGalley for letting me read it early.

 

‘Charlie, Presumed Dead’ – Anne Hetzel

The book opens with Aubrey in Paris about to attend the funeral of her boyfriend, Charlie, who is missing, presumed dead, after a plane crash. She is upset…but more so when a young woman called Lena stands at the funeral to talk about Charlie, her boyfriend.

People in this situation may well run a mile. But Aubrey and Lena are curious, and they start talking. They discover that each of them was dating Charlie, and yet they are suspicious that things are not quite as they seem.

What follows is quite absurd. The girls embark on a quite preposterous trip around places of significance. They try to meet people who knew Charlie as they work out what happened. Travelling around the world and putting themselves in increasingly dangerous situations was entertaining to read about, though only if you completely suspend your disbelief.

Where the book became less successful was in the third narrator’s voice, that of Charlie. This is a young man who seemed to be in the grips of some mental breakdown, and definitely not in full control of his faculties. Not quite the victim we think, Charlie knows details about a number of people he knows and is quite happy to torment them as part of a bigger plan. Unfortunately we never quite get to work out the point of it as the focus at the end shifts rather abruptly and we’re left in a dilemma. It seems this should have more to come, but there’s no sign that this is the case, which is more than a little dissatisfying.

 

‘Moment of Truth’ – Kasie West

I’m struggling to see how this formed a series as each of the books stands on their own. Yes, there’s some crossover characters, but the relevance to the story is really not important. That aside, this was another cute romance though it took a while to get going.

The story centres around sixteen year old Hadley, a dedicated swimmer, and her growing relationship with Jackson, who infuriated her but we can see it’s because he challenges her in a way others don’t and sees her for what she is. So, the relationship between these two is important and there plenty of ups and downs along the way but we can see just how compatible they are and watch to see how long until they realise it.

Hadley is focused, almost scarily so, and while I liked seeing her developing relationship with Jackson I felt that West was trying to do too many things by making her primary focus the relationship Hadley has with her parents. From the outset we can see that her relationship with mum and dad is skewed by the fact that they are still mourning her brother. She does so much but doesn’t seem to realise most of it is about trying to get the attention of her parents. If it’s so obvious to us and her friends then I wonder why it wasn’t the aspect of the book that West focused on more.

I completely get that behind the whole fake Heath Hall quest is the need for Hadley to recognise what’s holding her back. She knows it, but boy does it take her a long time to get round to working out how to face it!

 

‘Little White Lies’ – Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Jennifer Lynn Barnes did not disappoint here, in a surprisingly tense mystery rolled up in a beautifully packaged family drama.

Sawyer doesn’t come from the best of backgrounds. She’s used to fending for herself as her mother tends to flit from one thing to another, and their circumstances are tight. So when Sawyer is greeted by a rather glamorous woman who says she’s her grandmother and who offers her half a million dollars if she’ll live with her for nine months, we just know there’s a catch to this opportunity.

Having arrived to a home that is the height of luxury, Sawyer has to prepare for a season as a Deb. She also has the opportunity to find out who her father is, but there’s also a rather odd situation going on concerning some of the girls she’s now expected to ally herself with. Secrets aplenty, and it’s down to Sawyer to work out the extent to which she gets involved.

The story is beyond our wildest dreams, and we switch from this narrative to the group of girls being kept in a jail cell hours before their final ball. Clever plotting keeps the story engaging, and switching between these timelines kept me highly entertained.

 

‘Kiss My Cupcake’ – Helena Hunting

A romance to devour, and savour every moment of…

Blaire comes from a wealthy family of restaurant owners, but she has a dream of running her own business and making it successful on her own terms. Our first encounter with her is as she prepares to open her cupcake and cocktails shop. Things are looking good, but she’d not reckoned on Roman Knight who’s helping out his grandad by renovating the sports bar next door and installing some rather loud attractions.

First meeting between the two is explosive. They’re immediately wound up by each other, which we assume is the start of a great relationship eventually. Everyone around them can see where it’s going, but we have to go through the inevitable misunderstandings and problems first.

While it’s all quite transparent, the main characters are ones you can’t help but fall in love with. They’re far more alike than they want to let on, and the cast of surrounding characters also make for some amusing episodes.

From the off it was pretty obvious where we’d end up but every moment of this journey was great fun, and I’m so pleased that I was able to get my hands on this prior to publication.

‘Fame, Fate and the First Kiss’ – Kasie West

This time round we’re focusing on Lacey, who was a minor part of book one, and her role in a major movie. It’s a zombie horror movie, full of gore, and Lacey’s co-star is Hollywood heart-throb Grant who’s determined to reconnect with fans after some big budget movies haven’t gone as well as hoped.

Initially, Lacey came across as a little ruder and more insensitive than she did in book one. She was rude to her dad and doubted everything she was doing. Thankfully it was clear this was nerves about making a success of something important to her, so she never reached the stage of being too irritating.

Alongside the filming and mystery of who’s sabotaging her work, and why, we have a relationship with the cute boy who’s asked to tutor her.

It’s Kasie West so there’s few surprises. We get some tension, the characters have their ups and downs but it all gets resolved by the end and it’s a light-hearted read.

 

‘Faking Normal’ – Courtney C. Stevens

To a certain extent we all fake normal, but for those living with extreme situations it can become ingrained. From the moment we meet Lexi we know she’s struggling with something, something she can’t yet put a name to, but the signs are there and from the things she reveals it’s clear it’s serious. But nobody around her sees it…or, if they are picking up on the clues, they’re not pushing to learn the truth.

As Lexi manoeuvres her way through school she’s maintaining good grades and things seem, superficially, fine. But nobody knows that she can’t sleep at night, hides in her closet and self-harms as a way of trying to get through the pain of her experience.

This could have been a book like countless others, but alongside Lexi’s story we have Bodee. He starts as a rather nondescript character, given the nickname the Kool Aid kid, and all we know is he’s coming to live with Lexi after an incident involving his parents. Over time we learn more, and he quickly becomes the more interesting of the two – though because it’s Lexi’s story we never go quite as deep into the character as we could have.

What was at the heart of this book though was the developing friendship between these two, and the way they supported each other to begin to take the steps needed to begin their healing process.

Little clues were dropped initially about the identity of Lexi’s attacker. I had my suspicions, and once this was confirmed then it does make a lot more sense of some of the stuff we’ve seen. As in reality, we don’t see the full resolution but it was nice to know she was on her way.

‘The Voting Booth’ – Brandy Colbert

For anyone who has an interest in politics, social injustice and who also can’t help but get invested in a good old-fashioned romance. Voting Booth offers some serious messages, while also delivering a love story in the making.

Our main characters are two first-time voters, Marva and Duke. They’ve never met, but both come from families with a healthy interest in politics. When they turn up at the polling station for their first time voting everything could have gone smoothly and they’d have left never having exchanged words. But where would the fun be in that?

Marva’s voting experience goes without a hitch, but Duke isn’t registered to vote. Realising he pre-registered at his dad’s address he thinks it’s a straightforward matter of getting to the new polling station and turning in his vote. At that moment we know the gods are conspiring against him as his car won’t start. Marva, desperate to ensure he votes and does his bit, offers to drive him.

What follows has to go down as the weirdest of days. Marva and Duke end up searching for a missing cat, organising transport for other voters who can’t access their right, one gets dumped, they both sort out some of the issues they’ve been hanging onto and one plays a gig. Both succeed in voting (eventually) and there’s even the strong hints of them starting a relationship.

I found the interaction between these two very natural. Their passion for politics and their ability to make a difference was infectious, and though I was carried along with their relationship it was impossible to ignore the focus on pressing social issues and attitudes to race.

I really hope people find their way to this book and enjoy it as much as I did.

 

‘Love, Life and the List’ – Kasie West

Love, Life and the List is a YA contemporary that delivers exactly what it says it will.

The story is pretty straightforward. Abby wants to paint. She thinks she has talent, and wants to get a place on an art workshop. She also has a huge crush on her best friend, Cooper. She told him about it and was rebuffed, so has spent the last year pretending she was joking. They pretty much do everything together and it sounds like the kind of situation that could have drifted on and on.
Naturally, they need a bit of a kick in the right direction.

This comes when Abby’s boss tells her he won’t let her show her artwork because it lacks heart. Determined to work out what she should be doing differently, Abby starts off a summer of challenges. Each of these challenges is meant to show her the way forward, and help her to find something to inject some heart into her artwork.

From the outset we assume this will only go one way. There’s a few proverbial spanners in the work, but it’s all done in a very light-hearted way so you never feel like anyone is going to have their life destroyed.

Abby needs to learn a few things about herself in order to get to the right place for things to move forward. Those around her also have to change a few things…

 

‘We Are All the Same in the Dark’ – Julia Heaberlin

In this small town, we expect there will be secrets. So many people want to know what happened to young Trumanell Branson when she disappeared ten years ago. There are many who believe her brother, Wyatt, was responsible and they are watching, waiting to see if he will ever be found guilty of the crime they think he’s committed.

When he discovers a young girl lying in a field off the highway, it’s hard to know what to think. At this point we’re introduced to his ex-girlfriend, Odette, who happens to work for the police. She is convinced he’s innocent, but on the night Trumanell disappeared Odette had to flee the Branson home and was then in a car crash where she lost her leg. Determined to think good of the man she clearly still has feelings for, Odette helps him out.

As she helps the young girl, known initially as Angel, we uncover more about Odette, Wyatt and the town in which they live. We can see Odette is carrying out her own investigation, one which ultimately has serious repercussions.

Spanning years, this story is one that takes its time to resolve. It shifted and never settled until the closing stages, hinting at possible outcomes and ultimately showing us a pretty bleak stage.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this in advance of its August 11th publication in exchange for my review.