Sarra Manning - It Felt Like a Kiss

Ellie manages a swank Mayfair gallery, but it’s her life that’s a real work of art. Great job, really good hair, loyal friends, loving family. It’s only her succession of lame duck boyfriends that ruin the picture.
Oh, and the world-famous rock-star father she’s never met, who won’t even acknowledge her existence.
Then Ellie’s perfect life is smashed to pieces when her secret is sold to the highest bidder and her name, face (and pictures of her bottom) are splashed across the tabloids. Suddenly everyone thinks she’s a gold-digging, sex-crazy, famewhore.
Enter David Gold. Charming and handsome David Gold. On paper he’s even more perfect than Ellie, if only he wasn’t her father’s ruthlessly ambitious lawyer whose job is to manage the crisis – and her. He certainly doesn’t think that Ellie’s the innocent party and she doesn’t trust him at all. So why is it that every time they’re alone together, damage limitation is the last thing on their minds?

Comment: The first book I've read in 2017!

I got this book after having read another one by the author and because I liked, I looked at her other books and this one seemed interesting. I got it but it has been an year and something in the pile... but finally it was its time.

This is the story of Ellie Cohen, a young woman who has a good life, the job the loves, the family she cares about, the friends and the life she feels happy in. But she's got no luck with boyfriends and they all end up losers or better off after they dumped her. The last one happens to be the revenge type and after an out with her mother, a on and off rock singer/performer/composer, the ex sells out Ellie's story and, most important, the secret of Ellie's paternity, something she has always knew but suddenly everyone else knows too and she is portrayed very badly in the tabloids.

She calls her "father's" lawyers and in comes David Gold, a man she recognized as a smiling man with whom she flirted at the latest Glastonbury concert. They now seem opposites of who they were when they met and David seems to have a bad opinion of Ellie, especially after everything that the press published.

But David and Ellie still feel the attraction that made them connect at Glastonbury. Can they go past all this business Ellie definitely isn't to blame for and find common ground to be a couple?

By the blurb, I was expecting a sort of dramatic story but with cute and funny moments in the mix to make things easier on us and the characters. I thought the story would focus on Ellie and David's relationship as they both united efforts to battle the tabloids and the situation Ellie was in. But the way things happened, it was more a string of scenes of conflicts between Ellie and David, Ellie's inner doubts about the whole thing and a little portrait of what it means to have your privacy invaded in the UK (and generally as there are many character-types of what it's like to want to be famous at all costs). It doesn't mean this is all bad but...I think the romance or how sweet it could have been wasn't really a goal here.

Which wouldn't be a bad thing, Ellie's battle to regain privacy is quite interesting but... I kind of wished for more.

This is a story we can't miss is by a British author. It seems most British chick-lit  - and woman's fiction more or less - always have a lot of alcohol drinking in it! It must something cultural because I can't think of a book in the genre where the characters wouldn't be drinking often or something. I have to say after two, three times highlighting it, it becomes rather irritating. But maybe it's just me.

What I liked best was the way Ellie saw her life turn upside down but she tried to minimize things, she tried to keep a mostly normal life and I bet things are much worse for real famous people who can't let go of the tabloids and mean it. There are always those who seek fame even at terrible costs but Ellie isn't like that. The author didn't go as strongly as she could with this them, I guess. The focus was more on the supposedly funny parts, but t me they weren't as fun.

Ellie never had a relationship with her father, she never wanted one as her mother was always enough but of course some part of her wondered why he never looked out for her while doing it with his legitimate children. I think this part wasn't well explained.

We have glimpses of Ellie's mother slices of life with Ellie's father and from that to the bitter situation now it all seems rather pushed and forced. To me, the story has some characterization issues I don't think were completely explained.

The romance was a bit weak only because they never seem to develop a deeper bond than what we red on the page. There are no scenes, moves that will tell us without their words they are falling in love. In fact, they often have what I think of as secret dialogues in their heads, things we never see  and it feels like things happen, change and we don't see it, only guess they must be feeling it. It's weird and annoying.

All in all, it was a good book but not as good as it could have been, despite the emotional parts and the ones the author did well.

Grade:7/10

Sarra Manning - You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Sweet, bookish Neve Slater always plays by the rules. And the number one rule is that good-natured fat girls like her don't get guys like gorgeous, handsome William, heir to Neve's heart since university. But William's been in LA for three years, and Neve's been slimming down and re-inventing herself so that when he returns, he'll fall head over heels in love with the new, improved her.
So she's not that interested in other men. Until her sister Celia points out that if Neve wants William to think she's an experienced love-goddess and not the fumbling, awkward girl he left behind, then she'd better get some, well, experience.
What Neve needs is someone to show her the ropes, someone like Celia's colleague Max. Wicked, shallow, sexy Max. And since he's such a man-slut, and so not Neve's type, she certainly won't fall for him. Because William is the man for her... right?
Somewhere between losing weight and losing her inhibitions, Neve's lost her heart - but to who?  

Comment: This was the other Christmas book gift I got. I had never herd of this author before but I trust the taste of the person who gave it to me so I was quite eager to try it and see if I was going to be a fan of this story. This isn't a style I normally look for but it doesn't put me off completely so I just went with it right after the other present to put the gifts out of my lists.

This novel tells the story of bookish Neve, she's a young woman who went on a diet and has lost many pounds but still sees herself as too fat although her weight has reached a good number if not the one she could. Neve is still on a diet, living a good lifestyle and doing exercise. She has a crush on this guy working on the US but he will return to the UK and she wants to be a size ten by that time. In the meantime she wants to learn how to flirt and date so when her guy comes back he is impressed and falls for her immediately. Max seems the perfect to help her because he is just interested in casual or fast dates and not a relationship...right?

This story is mostly told from Neve's POV. although not in a first person narrator. Still, sometimes I wish I could have Max's vision of things because at some scenes that would offer a new meaning to things and the way things are, we could only know about Max's feelings or ideas when he told Neve. Not a bad thing, but something I wouldn't mind changing, at least in some key moments here and there.

The overall storyline is pretty much that idea that we work for a certain goal and don't always see what's in front of our eyes. Neve wanted to be closer to perfection, to be what she thought William, her dream man, wanted her to be. On one side she thought he might like and fall in love with her because of that, but at the same time she led her lifestyle for herself too, even is she didn't see it always like that. The truth was she didn't like her fatter side and she worked a lot to change, so it can't be all because of a guy. But for the purposes of this story I can see why she would focus more on that.
In comes Max, a so told man whore who just wanted casual flings but after a misunderstanding with Neve and a old fashioned letter of apology from her, Max looks for her and they start dating just so Neve can have some experience dealing with men, because Neve never felt confidant for that but she wants to be so for William. I liked Max a lot, he had an inner side quite beautiful and worthy and I liked getting to know him. His relationship with Neve starts as something flimsy but evolves and it was so romantic and special to see those two growing confidant in each other and what they had. Perfection is overreacted and really, it only matters in the eyes of the person who loves you back.

I liked how Neve and Max were together, their discoveries, the sharing, the support for th other when needed, all th little things that make a relationship work and how they wouldn't admit it to themselves for what it was...still, so many wonderful moments, like how they learned the intimacy of sleeping together, sex apart. The sexual side of things only came later but I liked how the author dealt with this aspect as well.

Of course, there's the expected conflict close to the end to allow the characters to learn their lesson and acknowledge their feelings but once more I was happy enough by the way things were done. I liked how Neve was bookish and funny and interesting and how at some point her body didn't define her completely. I liked how Max seemed shallow but had more inner beauty and courage one wouldn't wait for but existed. Together they found someone to cherish and teach the other why is vital to trust and to be with someone you really love and who can be there for you. I loved all the little things that made their relationship special.

This book offers quite the lessons and I was glad to be reading it. I think many little details don't seem important but manage to fulfill this novel with all the needed ingredients t be interesting and addictive to read. I recommend it because I had such a good time with it.
Grade: 8/10