romance – Cristina Sanders' blog

You Are Here – book review

You Are Here, by David Nicholls

You Are Here has a flat start. We are introduced to two seemingly introverted characters, both bruised by past loves, who are now so terrified about crossing their carefully constructed boundaries that they avoid most social connection. It makes a pretty dull first couple of chapters: one for each pessimistic narrator, but it’s pretty obvious, this being a romance, that these two will be thrown together against their will, dislike each other to begin with, argue, fall out, have a major crisis and get together for a happy ever after end. And so it happens. And it’s a great read!

Corkscrew You – book review

Corkscrew You, by Catherine Robertson

OK, enough of the serious stuff – fancy something feel-good, easy to read and quite a bit saucy? Catherine Robertson has just launched two vineyard romances, the first in the Flora Valley series, and they are exactly what romances should be. Smoking hot (4 chillies, my friends), all the sex is consensual and, frankly, glorious. The characters are well rounded but as hand-picked as a 1980s pop band – there is the bubbly one, the smart one, the cool executive type, the strong silent one, sporty, ginger – you get the picture. They all bring different things to the party.

Forgotten on Sunday–book review

Forgotten on Sunday, by Valé Perrin

This was a recommendation from my French Canadian friend. She’s young. All her friends loved it. Valérie Perrin is a best selling author in France, and her previous novel Fresh Water for Flowers was a massive hit. But does it work in translation and enchant an older audience? Hell, yes.

The Lighthouse – book review

The Lighthouse, by Christopher Parker

A book that seems well promoted in social media at the moment, The Lighthouse offers good engagement to keep the pages turning. It did have more of a Young Adult feeling than a grown-up read for me, with spooky but gentle ghosts, a sad but not gruesome mystery, young protagonists and a (pretty chaste) doe-eyed romance.

The Paper Palace – book review

The Paper Palace, by Miranda Cowley Heller

This felt like an over-crafted book from the start. We get the climax scene (haha, literally) and then, in dribs-and-drabs, the day that builds up to it and the day that follows, jabbed through with a long (and perhaps irrelevant?) history of the protagonist, her mother, her grandmother, her father – so many back-story characters slowing down the read. I just wanted to skip over them and get back to the main plot.

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