Local journalist Cassie is getting married to hot-shot, reliable Timothy and his mother Sylvia nicknamed ‘Monster-in-Law’ wants to plan the entire wedding. When Sylvia books the exclusive ID Images to take photographs of the extravagant do, Cassie has no idea what she’s walking into.

The elusive JM, ID Images’ newest photographer, just so happens to be Jared, Cassie’s first love and ex-fiancé, who broke off their engagement to travel and take photos of far-reaching wonders. He’s back to pay for his next wild adventure.

Cassie decides it’s best to pretend not to know him, but when she’s asked to write an article for her newspaper, she’s tasked with a column surrounding all things wedding related. When Cassie jokingly writes a column meant for herself depicting her situation, a co-worker submits it in place of the real article and it’s soon making headlines, with readers asking the age old question – Who Will She Choose?

Journalist Cassie is engaged to Timothy. He’s a rich successful and confident lawyer so when he proposed, in public, on Valentine’s Day, she couldn’t really refuse. But now his interfering and over-bearing mother has decided that the wedding should be in two months time. Cassie is worried she is being swept along with it all, but the venue her future mother-in-law has booked is just gorgeous, and then she also books the best photography studio in town to do the wedding photos. All seems to be going along okay until Cassie discovers that the photographer chosen to cover their wedding is in fact her first love, who broke her heart seven years ago.

I really loved this book. It had everything you need in a quick-read romantic comedy, and Cassie was really easy to relate to. She is desperately trying to retain her independence whilst at the same time being subtly controlled by both her fiancé and his mother. The writing style was light and very easy to read and if I’d had the time I would have loved to read it in one sitting. As it was I was excited to return to it when I went to bed and got totally caught up in the story while reading with a torch under the covers.

The main characters, Cassie, Timothy and photographer Jared, were all well written and I got a very clear picture in my mind of all of them. Jared was very sexy which is of course essential in this genre of book! The more minor characters including Timothy’s mother Sylvia, and Cassie’s best friend Sam, are also vividly portrayed. I always think the best friend is an essential part of a chick lit novel.

When Cassie is asked to write a wedding diary column in the paper she works for, the wrong article gets published and she is left in a very awkward situation. I don’t want to say too much more so as not to give anything away, but it kept me entertained and entranced right up to the end. An excellent read.

However, I do have a couple of concerns that I’d like to mention that I feel have more to do with the editing than the writing. Most of the book is seen from Cassie’s POV with sections being from Jared’s, and one from Timothy’s. That’s fine, but the head hopping occurred with no warning, in the middle of a page, and actually became a little disconcerting and confusing at times. I always feel it’s better to have a break (row of stars maybe) before a POV change to make it obvious that we are now in someone else’s head. This didn’t distract from the story at all, but would have made the reading a little easier.

My other concern is the actual editing. There were a couple of occasions when the wrong name was used for someone; a minor character who at the beginning was a single mum, had a loving husband later in the book, and on one occasion the word chronically was used instead of chronologically. Add to that the missed spelling mistakes and missing words and I feel the manuscript would definitely have benefited from another edit.

All that said, I really loved the book and would love to read more of Karen’s work. It’s lovely to find a new author that you enjoy and I would heartily recommend this book to anyone who likes a good escapist read.

Birmingham born and bred, I recently spent eight years living in Cornwall but now live in Worcester with my husband, Dave. I have four grown-up daughters and ten grandchildren.

I started my writing career with the teenage magazine, Jackie and spent many years writing for various children’s magazines before concentrating solely on writing books. I’ve had over one hundred and twenty children’s books published by a range of publishers, including Walker, Scholastic and Harper Collins. I write both fiction and non-fiction – including picture books, story books, activity, joke and puzzle books – for children from pre-school to teens. Some of my short stories were featured on Playdays BBC and some of my poems on the BBC One Potato, Two Potato website.

I love writing for children because they are so willing to suspend disbelief and bury themselves into the characters and imaginary worlds of Storyland. Books brought me so much pleasure when I was a child, I can still remember laughing out loud at the hilarious escapades of ‘Just William’ or chewing my fingernails as the ‘Secret Seven’ went on yet another exciting adventure. Books can mean so many things to children, they can make them laugh, hope, dream, take them away from their problems for a while, or help them cope with them. Modern technology is wonderful but to me nothing is as good as settling down with a good book.

I also love writing ‘grown up’ stories. My chick-lit novel, I do?…or do I? is now available, my second one will be out in Spring next year and I’m working on the third. They are all published by Accent Press.

www.karenking.net
@karen_king
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Meet Guest Reviewer – Author Rachael Richey

I currently have four books published by The Wild Rose Press. They are all available on Amazon and most other online retailers, both as e-books and paperbacks. These four books are The NightHawk Series, featuring artist Abigail Thomson and rock star Gideon Hawk and fit into the Women’s Fiction genre.