The Summer of Taking Chances by Lynne Shelby

The Summer of Taking Chances by Lynne Shelby has it all: a picturesque and tranquil seaside village of South Quay, the height of hot summer, a handsome heart-throb and an emotionally intelligent heroine, Emma, who relays to us this romantic tale.

It is a tale of two people, Emma and Jake, who were once intimately close and now have a second chance to fall in love. They have plenty in common. Acting is one thing that binds them. Emma plays the part of Juliette in an amateur production of Romeo and Juliette. Jake is a fully-fledged film star. She is single. He has recently broken up with his girlfriend. He doesn’t seem heartbroken or on the rebound. Old school friends, the two of them are relaxed and at ease with each other. Particularly charming are their exchanges where they aptly use Shakespearean quotations to quibble with each other and laugh at their very own, inside jokes. All other young and eligible ladies in South Quay are swooning over Jake, but he seems to only have eyes for Emma.

Yet, not everything is as it seems. While we take a stroll on the beach with Emma and Jake or join them at a party, watching them grow closer and closer, we also learn about their common past. Shelby reveals small bits of their history, one at a time, through Emma’s eyes. We discover height of emotion and depths of pain, and we wonder: will that past be an obstacle to their future?
The Summer of Taking Chances is beautifully written and absorbing. It has depth and many three-dimensional characters not limited to Emma and Jake. It is a poignant and absorbing read. Highly recommended.

A Cornish Escape by Jenny Kane

A while back, I read an earlier edition of Jenny Kane’s A Cornish Escape, and thoroughly enjoyed it. When I discovered the book’s idyllic new cover, I just had to read it again. What a treat in the time of pandemic! Chicken soup for the soul!

A Cornish Escape isn’t just about romance. It is also about loss, recovery, starting over, and many acts of basic human kindness. It doesn’t feature only the young and the beautiful. There is a wide spectrum of characters, including the elderly who are portrayed with great sensitivity. Stan is my absolute hero, and he is no spring chicken!

If you’re feeling slightly under the weather and a little bit stuck in emotional lockdown, warm your heart up with that lovely story. It is well written with beautiful descriptions of Cornwall which are vivid enough to make you feel, just for that one fleeting moment, that you are actually there.

Still Me by Jojo Moyes

Still Me is a third book in a trilogy. I hadn’t read the first two, but that didn’t matter. The story is so skilfully developed that I just dived into it and in no time felt like a little fish frolicking in a friendly pond. All the characters were fully fleshed out and multi-layered. They weren’t just cardboard cut-outs, but talking, feeling, walking people complete with their shadows, their past, their secrets and their quirks. Their stories flew and crossed with one another, and all of them were delivered to a satisfactory resolution. New beginnings, heart breaks, up and downs, injustices and small acts of kindness were assembled together to create a rich background to what, in essence, was a classic love story.
Heart-warming, life-affirming, sweet, uplifting and adorable are the kind of superlatives I wouldn’t hesitate to use to sum up Still Me, and that’s some compliment because I am not a romantic. I enjoyed it just like I sometimes enjoy a box of chocolates, which always takes me by surprise as chocolate isn’t my thing.

The State We’re In by Adele Parks

There are four narrative voices in The State We’re In: two of the ‘baby boomers’ generation, Eddie and Clara, and two in their thirties: Dean (Eddie’s son, abandoned by his father at six) and Jo (Clara’s loved and cherished daughter). Their lives criss-cross in the course of the story, as do their narratives. The baton of the narrative is passed from one character to another as they present their own takes on the same events and nudge the story to the next stage. The prose is vibrant, light and flows well, but for me there was a little too much of psycho-analysis and introspection going on at the expense of the actual action. I was told, rather than shown, what the characters were like. This was a bit overcooked.
The State We’re In is a romance mirrored across those two generations in a quite contrived way which doesn’t quite ring true for a cynic like me. This is because I’m not your typical romance reader; it isn’t a genre of choice for me. I found the coincidences bemusing rather than engaging; Jo was entirely irritating and Dean stereotypical in his macho-man ways, even when he warmed up to Jo, because then it all became predictable.
The ending didn’t grab me.
However, The State We’re In is a good book. It chronicles generational mores, times and ways of life really aptly.

French Kissing by Lynne Shelby

The story starts with letters written by the awkward and inexperienced hands of two children: Anna from London and Alex from Paris. At first, they don’t know what to say to each other. Anna is practising her French, Alex his English, but with time, intimacy of friendship grows between them. This is reinforced when they meet face to face and spend some time together. They are mates. They can trust each other. They have the purity of true friendship between them.

Then, years later, Alex arrives in London. He is no longer a pimply teenager – he is a handsome young man with a broken heart. Anna’s friends compete for his affection. Anna’s boyfriend is jealous of him. And the reader begins to think that Nick is right even though both Anna and Alex would swear there is nothing going on between them. Because there isn’t, except…

Lynne Shelby weaves the intricate lace of their transforming friendship with great insight. Her characterisation is vibrant, but realistic. She shows their vulnerabilities, changes of heart, their self-discovery and their doubts with subtlety and without making things too obvious. You know how it is going to end. You will them in the right direction, but there are twists and turns along the way, which keep you on the page.

The atmosphere of bohemian Paris is expertly created. The reader feels drawn into the city.

Reading the book, I felt this could be another You’ve Got Mail waiting to be made into a movie.