Book Review: THE WONDER GIRLS BY CATHERINE JONES

Genre:  Modern Fiction
Published:  June 2012  (Simon & Schuster)
Source:  From the Publishers

About the Book:

'Don't follow the crowd,' she'd be telling schoolgirls at the swimming baths. 'Follow your own star and when you have achieved your goal you will have that with you for the rest of your life...'
In 1928, a plucky young Welsh girl named Ida Gaze swims the Bristol Channel with the help of her best friend Freda and the inspiration of her heroine Amelia Earhart.
In 1937, on the instructions of the matron, a young skivvy at a grand maternity hospital in London smuggles out an orphaned baby on one of the coldest nights of the year.
Now, in a small town in Wales, an old lady named Ceci pieces together these stories and is about to discover the surprising ways in which they link to her own. It begins with two girls in the twenties who left their small Welsh village for the Big Smoke, feeling that the world was changing and everything was possible…


I really wanted to like this book....I loved the cover of the two young women wearing bathing suits from the 1920's and I thought the story would be more about them and their swimming lives....but it wasn't and I was so disappointed about that.

It started well ..... with 14 year old Cecily who was working as a cleaner at a rich private clinic in London in 1937.  One cold evening the Sister asks her to take away from the clinic the baby of a very poorly mother.  But we don't know why and this leaves us with a cliffhanger until near the end.

The story then moves to the present when Cecily, now an old lady, is living on her own after her 'companion' Freda had died.  Whilst looking through Freda's effects she finds an old photo of a young girl in a bathing costume and this sets her on a quest to discover who this girl was and what happened to her.

The book moves back and forth in time from the present to 1928 to a time when a 16 yr old girl called Ida Gaze (the 'Wonder Girl') becomes the first woman to swim the Bristol Channel - 11 miles of treacherous water between Wales and England.  'Nobody thought a woman would cross the Atlantic and Amelia Earhart did - so why shouldn't I cross the water to another country?'

I was really enjoying this part of the story as I found it fascinating but shortly after when Ida and her friend Freda decide to go to London to start a new life my interest waned quite a lot.  I found it a little boring and I struggled to keep going....but I did and it did get slightly better as the secrets are slowly revealed.

The only character I warmed to was Cecily, I didn't like Freda at all and I couldn't understand why so many women fell for her, she was an oddball, selfish and she didn't care who's feelings she hurt with her nasty remarks.

So, it was not really my kind of book overall.

If this sounds like your kind of book head on over to Lindsay at The Little Reader Library where Catherine Jones has written a fascinating piece all about the background to the story.  Lindsay loved this book and you can read her brilliant review here

Thank you to the publishers, Simon & Schuster, for sending me this to review.

Book Review: BABY BE MINE BY PAIGE TOON

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Published:  Simon & Schuster  (July 2011)
Pages:  439  (Paperback)

Source:  Publishers
My Rating:  9/10

About the Book:

'He's not mine, is he?' That's the question I fear the most. You see, I have a secret. My son is not fathered by my boyfriend, but by one of the most famous rock stars that ever lived. And he doesn't even know it. 
One-time celebrity personal assistant to wild boy of rock Johnny Jefferson, Meg Stiles is now settled and living in the south of France with her doting boyfriend Christian and their son Barney. 
But they're living a lie - a lie that will turn their lives upside down and inside out - because as Barney reaches his first birthday, Meg can no longer deny that her son is growing to look more and more like his rock star father every day, and less and less like Christian, and sooner or later, the world is going to realise ...

This is the follow-up to Johnny Be Good which was published in 2008 so it's been a long anxious wait to find out what happened to Meg and Johnny.  I haven't read that book but I wish I had -- I don't think I needed to read it but, after finishing this, I wanted to read it, if only to know more about their relationship before this sequel.

I loved the writing style, it was not over-dramatic or soppy, it had just the right amount of tenderness and fun and sadness all wrapped up in the story.  

At the beginning of the story Meg was full of guilt and lived in constant fear of everyone (particularly the lovely and patient Christian) finding out, but when Johnny finds out early on that he is Barney's father he reacts in a totally different way to what everyone expects from a man 'with the attention span of a gnat'.

'Okay,' I say, because I don't want to hurt him (Christian) anymore.  But this is going to be complicated.  Johnny is aware of Barney's existence now.  I can't imagine how this is going to pan out, but there's one thing I'm certain of: there's more hearbreak to come.

Meg's roller coaster of emotions really moved me as she tried to come to terms with her guilt over Christian, her feelings about Johnny, and above all her love for her little boy which really shone through and was incredibly touching at times.  

While I didn't laugh or cry (as the blurb suggested) there were some funny moments and I did feel for Meg, I really wanted her to be happy and I was never sure how it was going to go, it kept me on tenterhooks until the very end.


I thought this was an engrossing story, great storyline, interesting characters, that will keep you reading because you just want to find out what happens!  And you can't ask for anything more in a book can you?

Special Thank You to the publishers for sending me this book to review.

Paige Toon's author page on Simon & Schuster is here.

 

Book Review: THE HUNGER TRACE BY EDWARD HOGAN

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Published by:  Simon & Schuster  (March 2011)
Pages:  360  (Hardback)
Source:  Received for review from Simon & Schuster
My Rating:  8/10

About the Book:

The sudden death of David Bryant, the charismatic owner of a rambling Derbyshire wildlife park, leaves an indelible mark on three very different people.
David's young widow, Maggie, struggles to preserve the park and to forge friendships untainted by the suspicions of others. His old friend Louisa, a falconer who lives on the grounds, just wants to be left alone with her hawks and the dark secret she has shared with David since their youth. Meanwhile, Christopher, David's eccentric teenage son from an earlier marriage, strives for a life beyond the park and trawls the internet for a woman who shares his family values.
With the arrival of a stranger, and unforeseen disaster amid the worst rains for a hundred years, the loyalties of Maggie, Louisa and Christopher will be stretched to breaking point, and each must face the decisions which will define them...

A wildlife park in the middle of England is the unusual backdrop to this novel which mostly features  three characters all dealing with the aftermath of the owner’s death two years before.

Maggie, the widow of David, is left to cope with the running of the park, while her only ‘friend’ is the hostile Louisa who has been in love with David since they were teenagers, and who is jealous of and resents Maggie.  

Louisa lives in a cottage across the field from 'the big house' where Maggie and Christopher live and constantly spies on her.

Christopher, David's teenage son from his first marriage, lives with Maggie, he is unpredictable, slightly psychotic, has a habit of speaking the truth, is obsessed with Robin Hood and knows that Louisa watches them in their ‘big house’.

As life goes on in the park Maggie and Louisa start to let their barriers down and gradually become close friends, confiding in each other, Louisa helping in the park as well as looking after her beloved hawks and for a while they both start looking forward.....then Adam (a man with an unusual adult occupation!) enters their life and their friendship is tested.

Louisa’s romance with Adam formed quite a large part of the story …...... I really liked Adam but my main doubt was that I just couldn’t see what he saw in the unfriendly, unpopular 47 yr old Louisa who lived for her hawks. It seemed an unlikely friendship to me and I found it difficult to believe.

The character I liked the most was Christopher, though I probably shouldn’t as he was so weird, but he did make me laugh with his honesty.  He once refused to eat meat for a while as he feared retribution from the animals in the park.  Maggie took him to the cinema (from page 231) …..

She watched Christopher bite into a nacho loaded with various mush.  He closed his eyes while he chewed, and sighed with pleasure, as if he’d just taken some life-saving antidote.  Crisp shards fell into his hand, which he had readied below his chin for that purpose.  He pushed the crumbs in, too.  Against all odds, it was fun to watch.  When had Maggie last enjoyed food to such an extent?  She laughed, and Christopher laughed too, unable to contain his pleasure.

I enjoyed the writing, it was easy and simple and flowed quickly.  The idea of having a wildlife park in the background was very original and his observations of the falcons and the hawks was a joy to read.

A special Thank You to Simon & Schuster for sending me this book to review.

Book Review: MR CHARTWELL BY REBECCA HUNT

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction

Published by:  Fig Tree (Penguin Books)  Oct 2010
Pages:  224  (Hardback)
My Rating:  6/10

About the Book:

It's July 1964.
In bed at home in Kent, Winston Churchill is waking up. There's a visitor in the room, someone he hasn't seen for a while, a dark, mute bulk, watching him with tortured concentration. It's Mr Chartwell.
In her terraced house in Battersea, Esther Hammerhans, young, vulnerable and alone, goes to answer the door to her new lodger. Through the glass she sees a vast silhouette the size of a mattress. It's Mr Chartwell.
Mr Chartwell is a huge, black dog.
He is charismatic and dangerously seductive - as their lives are slowly drawn together, can Esther and Winston Churchill withstand his strange, powerful charms and strong hold?
In this utterly original, moving, funny and exuberant novel, Rebecca Hunt explores how two unlikely lives collide as Mr Chartwell's motives are revealed to be far darker and deeper than they seem.

Esther Hammerhans is a wispy, slim library clerk who works at Westminster Palace ….. Sir Winston Churchill is just about to retire from politics after 60 years …. at first glance they seem to have absolutely nothing in common, until the day Mr Chartwell enters Esther’s life and they begin to share this huge black dog as he divides his time between them.

She had been lonely --

For a long time the weeks of her life had drifted past as ghosts.  There was the rare bump of pleasure, perhaps from a meal out our a visit to the cinema, but it was brittle and shattered under the lonely monotony of the ghost days.  But now the singular Mr Chartwell was here, ransacking her forlorn routine.  It was a tonic of acid vibrancy and nerves.

Of course, what we realise that what they both have in common is depression. Churchill had been plagued by his ‘black dog’ for years but Esther was new to it all, and while she cautiously welcomes this intrusion into her sad life, he hates Mr Chartwell and wants him to leave him alone.  But will he?

Rebecca Hunt has taken the serious subject of depression and shown how it can affect different people in different ways, whoever they are.  The writing is very lively and, sometimes, entertaining.  Although I didn’t warm to Esther (she was too indecisive), I did like her friend, Beth, who tried to help her through her distress with some witty lines.

I don’t think this was really my type of book, I found it quite uncomfortable and weird the thought of a speaking dog.  It just didn’t feel right to me, I just couldn't imagine this big black dog walking around and lying on the bed chatting away! I do applaud Rebecca Hunt for her originality and boldness in writing about this sad subject.

A very original and clever story told in a slight off-beat way. Maybe it was just too off-beat for me!

Read the first pages of Mr Chartwell by downloading the Penguin taster here

You can read an interview with Rebecca Hunt talking about Mr Chartwell here

Book Review: WHERE WOULD I BE WITHOUT YOU? BY GUILLAUME MUSSO

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Published by:  Gallic Books  (April 2011)
Pages:  348  (Paperback)
My Rating:  7/10

About the Book:

Parisian cop Martin Beaumont has never really got over his first love, Gabrielle.  Their brief, intense affair in San Francisco and the pain of her rejection still haunt him years later.
Now, however, he's a successful detective – and tonight he's going to arrest the legendary art thief, Archibald Maclean, when he raids the Musée d'Orsay for a priceless Van Gogh.
But the enigmatic Archibald has other plans.
Martin's pursuit of the master criminal across Paris is the first step in an adventure that will take him back to San Francisco, and to the edge of love and life itself.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, it had all the ingredients of a fascinating story, the enigmatic cover of a woman alone on a beach, an unrequited love, a cop looking for a world famous art thief, set in France and the USA, obsessive characters …........ but in the end I just felt quite disappointed.

I thought the main storyline was too coincidental, it just didn’t feel plausible to me.  If I said what it was it would be a huge spoiler.

I didn’t really empathise with the main characters either, Gabrielle, Martin and Archibald. I didn’t feel that I really knew them any more by the end than I did at the beginning.  They didn’t seem to know what they thought and kept changing their minds so I didn’t know their inner mind workings, and therefore I found myself not caring too much about what happened to them.

I also wondered whether there was such a thing as product placement in a book?  I lost count of the number of times a particular brand of fizzy drink was drunk, or a certain mp3 player was used, I actually found that quite annoying by the end.

I did think it was well translated though, if i didn’t know it was originally written in French, I wouldn’t have known, the writing flowed very easily and the dialogue seemed natural.

So, even though it was not my type of book I’m sure that some people would enjoy it, after all the cover reads that ‘over 1 million copies sold worldwide’!

Many thanks to Gallic Books for sending me this book to review.

Book Review: WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT BY SARAH WINMAN

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Published by:  Headline Review  (March 2011)
Pages:  336  (Paperback)
My Rating:  7/10

About the Book:

Spanning four decades, from 1968 onwards, this is the story of a flawed family and the slew of ordinary and extraordinary incidents that shape their everyday lives.  It is a story about childhood and growing up, loss of innocence, eccentricity, familial ties and friendships, love and life.  Stripped down to its bare bones, it’s about the unbreakable bond between a brother and sister.

1st Line:

I decided to enter this world just as my mother got off the bus after an unproductive shopping trip to Ilford.

Eleanor Maud, born in 1968, is the narrator of this story, she’s the sister of Joe who is 5 years older and he was different to other boys his age; "an exotic creature who secretly wore his mother’s lipstick at night, it was his outlet against a conservative world, the quiet rebellion of a rank outsider."

The book is rich with eccentric characters, including her best friend, Jenny Penny, who would pull a coin out of her arm and Arthur, (came to stay and never left) who knew his exact date of death and how he would die.  

It is told in two parts, the first is Elly’s childhood and the second is her adulthood.  And this is where my feelings about the book changed.  I loved the first part, it was funny …... I was in stitches reading about the Nativity Play and the rugby match …...... it was touching when her brother gave her a rabbit for Christmas and called it god …....... and the ups and downs of her parents relationship and her friendship with her best friend.  All wonderfully written and a joy to read and I just wanted it to carry on in that era but then the story moves on 19 years and it just wasn’t the same for me.  

The writing was still of a high quality but I found myself not caring as much for the characters and I can’t really put my finger on why I felt like that.  Maybe I just liked them as children but not as adults.

Overall, this was a book of two halves!  That’s why I gave it a 7/10 instead of a 9/10.

Book Review: Hector and the Secrets of Love by Francois Lelord

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Published by:  Gallic Books  (January 2011)
Pages:  276  (Paperback)


My Rating:  7/10


About the Book:

What is the secret formula for love?
Hector, our intrepid psychiatrist, sets off on a new globe-trotting mission – and this time he's looking for LOVE.
One of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies has employed him to track down their brilliant scientist, Professor Cormorant, who has disappeared abroad with the secret of a modern-day love potion.
Leaving behind his troubled relationship with girlfriend Clara, Hector's adventure takes him to the Far East and into the arms of beautiful Vayla, forcing our hero to think deeply about what love really is/means.

This is the second book about the adventures of Hector, the psychiatrist, following on from Hector and the Search for Happiness which I reviewed here

The style of writing is in the same childlike manner which is so easy and quick to read that I just skipped along the short paragraphs.


Hector travels to Asia to look for his friend, the professor who has disappeared with samples of a drug for falling in love, or for staying in love when we want to. But, before he sets off his girlfriend Clara tells him that they should stop seeing each other for a while so he has to question his own feelings for her and tries to discover the secrets of love along the way.


As in the first book Hector makes notes of his discoveries, some of which include

• Love and jealousy go hand in hand

• Love is, smiling the moment you see one another

While searching, he meets a young girl who speaks no English, possibly falling in love with her, is used in one of the professor's experiments, makes new friends, meets and then loses the professor.


I like Hector, he is simple, uncomplicated, friendly and intelligent.  He easily makes friends with people no matter who they are or where they're from.


But, about half way through I started to get bored with the story, the pace was going a little too slowly for me, and there was quite a lot of information to absorb. I didn't feel that I knew the other characters very well so couldn't really empathise with them or care too much about what happened to them.


This wasn't a page turner, though it did pick up pace gradually as the plot unfolded and I liked the few twists and turns.


Overall, I didn't enjoy it as much as Hector and the Search for Happiness.


At the back of the book there is an excerpt from the next Hector book -- Hector Finds Time -- which is to be published in April 2012.


For more information see the GallicBooks website

BOOK REVIEW: A SEASON TO REMEMBER BY SHEILA O'FLANAGAN

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Published by: Headline (Oct 2010)

Pages: 311 (Hardback)

My Rating: 8.5/10

A SEASON TO REMEMBER BY SHEILA O'FLANAGAN

My Thoughts:

This is a lovely collection of short stories all based around the people staying at the Sugar Loaf Lodge in Ireland over Christmas.

They all have their own personal reasons for staying there and we learn from their back stories just what that reason is. We meet an assortment of people, including the husband and wife owners who have money worries, a young girl who is on her own having made an unwise choice in her life, stressed out couples, long time friends, unhappy families, and many more who have all chosen this beautiful hotel nestled in the picturesque Irish mountains.

Some of the people interact with each other during their time away but most of them are stand alone stories.

I've only read one other book by Sheila O'Flanagan which was Anyone But Him and I thought a nice touch was that several characters from that book are featured in this one!

This is a lovely feel good book, you don't have to read it at Christmas time as their back stories are not based on the holiday season but I started reading it on Christmas Eve sat in front of a warm fire and it all added to the lovely wintry seasonal feel.

Sheila O'Flanagan's website can be found here

I won this book on Twitter from Headline Publishers just before Christmas, so a huge thanks to them for picking me! Their Twitter ID is @headlinepg

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BOOK REVIEW: HAND ME DOWN WORLD BY LLOYD JONES

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Published by: John Murray (Nov 2010)

Pages: 320 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 6/10

HAND ME DOWN WORLD BY LLOYD JONES

About the Book:

This is a story about a woman. And the truck driver who mistook her for a prostitute. The old man she robbed and the hunters who smuggled her across the border. The woman whose name she stole, the wife who turned a blind eye.This is the story of a mother searching for her child.

My Thoughts:

The first part of the story is narrated by various people who encountered a woman and helped her in her quest to travel to Berlin to find her young son. I thought this was intriguing and I really liked how they all helped her in different ways, some good, some not so good, from a truck driver, snail shell collector to a chess player and other interesting characters.

As the story goes on we gradually learn a little more about this woman from Africa, until she herself narrates the last part and we see that she sees most of the people and the situations in a different way.

For me, the story started well but slowly I got bored, it just didn't hold my attention enough, I didn't really care too much about Ines, the woman, or the characters she meets about half way through. I did like the easy writing style which contained mainly short sentences and paragraphs.

I read and enjoyed Mister Pip which was Lloyd Jones last book so this was quite a disappointment to me.

BOOK REVIEW: JUBILEE BY ELIZA GRAHAM

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Published by: Pan Books (June 2010)

Pages: 327 (Paperback)

My Rating: 8.5/10

JUBILEE BY ELIZA GRAHAM

About the Book:

It's the Queen's Golden Jubilee, and Rachel and her aunt Evie are celebrating with the crowds on the village green. The scene is tranquil, but Rachel and her aunt can never forget what happened exactly twenty-five years ago. On that day, Evie's young daughter Jessamy vanished. She hasn't been seen since. Soon after, news comes of Evie's sudden death, and Rachel must return to the village to deal with her aunt's estate. The extraordinary story she uncovers there will change everything. It is a story of departure and return, of atrocity and betrayal, of unrequited love and the dreadful legacy of war.

My Thoughts:

First Line

By the time the kitchen clock struck seven I knew that my cousin wouldn't be coming back

After reading and loving the first two Eliza Graham novels -- Playing with the Moon and Restitution -- I was eagerly looking forward to another mystery with the backdrop of the War and I think she has once again come up with another excellent and compelling story!

The story starts with the now grown up Rachel reminiscing about the day of the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 when she was aged 9 and her 10 year old cousin Jessamy seemingly vanished off the face of the earth, there were no signs of a struggle, no reports of a child being dragged off, she was happy and had no problems, so what could possibly have happened to her?

We are taken back and forth in time throughout the book, from the prison camps of the second World War , the Queen's Coronation in 1953, the Queen's Silver and Golden Jubilees, through to the present day, as we are slowly building up a picture of Jessamy and her family and of the secrets they hold. Indeed, on the day Jessamy vanished she said to Rachel that she hated keeping secrets.

Evie (Jessamy's mother) and her twin brother were evacuated to the Winters family farm in the country during WWII and I loved how we were given snippets of the letters that Robert Winter wrote, but never sent, to a young Evie while he was in a prisoner of war camp. It gave us an insight into not only the terrible conditions but also of the slowly deteriorating mind of a young man who struggles to live a normal life after the War has ended and he comes back to work on the family farm.

I enjoyed this book and was engrossed in the story from start to finish, I thought the prisoner of war camp was handled sensitively and knowledgeably, the characters both main and on the periphery were strong and believable, and overall a thoroughly good mystery.

Eliza Graham's website is here -- to whom I must thank for sending me her book to review.

BOOK REVIEW: THE BLACK MADONNA BY PETER MILLAR

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Published by: Arcadia Books (September 2010)

Pages: 315 (Paperback)

My Rating: 9/10

THE BLACK MADONNA BY PETER MILLAR

About the Book:

In ruins on the outskirts of Gaza, the war-torn Palestinian city that had been a metropolis since the times of the pharaohs, a plucky young female archaeologist has made a remarkable find: possibly the earliest known image of the Virgin Mary, created during her lifetime. But before she can reveal it to the world, it is stolen from her in a brutal personal assault amidst the chaos of an Israeli airstrike. But who has stolen it and why? What dark hidden secret did it conceal? With her former lover, an Oxford professor of comparative historiography – the science of comparing alternative versions of the past – she sets out on a dangerous quest to some of the holiest sites in Christendom.

In a tale of murder, treason, intrigue and geopolitics, they uncover a web of conspiracy, cover-ups, confused mythology and interlinked religion that dates back to the last pagan Roman emperor, and maybe even to the very origins of life on earth.

My Thoughts:

Peter Millar has been compared to Dan Brown, though having read 'Angels and Demons' I think that Peter Millar's storyline is more believable and exciting and is much better written overall.

When Nazreem Hashrawi, Museum Curator, discovers "one of the most important, semi-legendary items in Christian lore" her life is instantly in danger from people who are not averse to brutally torturing and murdering people who get in their way. But just why these people would want the Madonna and why they would want to kill Nazreem is revealed slowly and tantalisingly in this very compelling story with twists and turns that I found hard to put down.

The tension built up steadily as Nazreem and her ex-lover Marcus Frey, an Oxford Professor, travel to Spain and Bavaria in an effort to seek out other similar idols while meeting people such as the devout Sister Galina in Germany who mysteriously vanishes after speaking to them.

I thought the plot was fascinating overall and Peter Millar has obviously done an amazing amount of research; it seemed that every character had an encyclopaedic memory of historical events and which sometimes seemed too much and I couldn't always take in all the facts and figures, though I could follow the story (just!) without it spoiling my enjoyment.

Even though it is a complicated plot at no time did I feel that I didn't know what was going on, the style of writing was very readable, most of the characters were believable (with a couple of exceptions) and I liked the way that an intelligent headstrong young Muslim woman was one of the lead characters.

Thoroughly recommended for anyone who enjoys a thriller with a historical lesson - the authors notes at the back of the book make for interesting reading too.

My Thanks go to Arcadia Books for sending me this book to review.

Peter Millar's website can be found here

Read my Q and A with Peter Millar here

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BOOK REVIEW: E SQUARED BY MATT BEAUMONT

Genre: Modern Fiction

Published by: Black Swan (May 2010)

Pages: 505 (Paperback)

My Rating: 8.5/10

E SQUARED BY MATT BEAUMONT

About the Book:

Out of the ashes of doomed ad agency Miller Shanks has risen Meerkat 360, a very 21st century workplace. Staff include David Crutton, an MD with the worst email signature in history; Milton Keane, a definitely-straight PA with a yearning for reality tv fame; Liam O'Keefe, a creative with an online gambling addiction who may be linked with the contents of the stationery cupboard appearing on eBay; and Harvey Harvey, a creative who politely replies to pornographic spam and who might just have met his future wife online – a rich Nigerian princess in deep trouble…

Told entirely via emails, texts, webchat and blogs, the long-awaited follow up to E is a hilariously funny insight into the hearts, minds and inboxes of the world’s most engagingly dysfunctional ad agency.

My Thoughts:

I thought this was a funny and unique look at the loves and lives of the crazy workers at a fictitious Ad Agency, it didn't make me laugh out loud, but I did chuckle a couple of times. I haven't read the first book 'E' so I didn't know any of the characters and it took me quite a while to really get involved in their story as there were so many characters; but once I did I don't think it mattered that I hadn't read the first book.

I really liked the way the workers daily lives are told through technology at Meerkat360 "the agency that's so cutting-edge you slice your finger on the lift button." The whole book just consisted of them emailing, texting, and blogging to each other during the month of January which seemed to be full of crazy advertising ideas; listings on Ebay of various office products from mugs to photocopiers which have myseriously gone missing; a member of staff who is permanently away on one weird course or another.

We learn about their personal problems, the break-ups, the tears, the tantrums and suicide attempts. Amazingley, they even manage to do some work in between, possibly thanks to Mr Fraggles the new Clown in Residence who is employed to give the creative Department "a vital and distinctive edge."

Even though I didn't feel connected with any of the characters, it was very clever how Beaumont made me feel happy, sad or sorry for them. A good, entertaining read.

This is the third book I've read in the Transworld Dan Brown Summer Reading Challenge - details of which can be found here.

The first two books were ~

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

and

After You by Julie Buxbaum