Be careful what you wish for…
Florence Fairfax isn’t lonely. She loves her job at the little bookshop in Chelsea and her cat, Marmalade, keeps her company at night. But everything changes when her stepsister, Mia, announces that she’s engaged to her boring golf-playing boyfriend. That’s when Florence meets Irish love coach, Gwendolyn.
…because you just might get it!
When Gwendolyn makes Florence write a wish list describing her perfect man, Florence refuses to take it seriously. Finding someone who likes cats, doesn’t wear pointy shoes and can overlook her ‘counting habit’? Impossible! Until, later that week, a handsome blond man asks for help in the bookshop…
But is Rory the one, or is he simply too good to be true? Florence is about to find out that her criteria for finding Mr Right aren’t as important as she thought – and that perhaps her perfect man has been right there all along…
I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this. I tend to like romcoms over straight up romance, and although there are some very funny passages in this, it didn't feel like a romcom. However, I'm glad I stuck with it, because it really is very good.
I skimmed the sex - not the interesting part as far as I'm concerned, but if you like it, more power to you. There's a fair amount but it's all quite well flagged.
I didn't think too much of Flo at first. She seemed judgy and unwilling to bend. As I read on, though, either she unbent or I got used to her. By a certain Christmasy scene I found I was laughing as I read.
WARNING, though;
Overall, I very much enjoyed this. I loved watching Flo's relationships deepen and become more meaningful, I loved a certain event centred around her sisters near the end, I loved her slow realisation that she'd had all these friends all along, she just hadn't realised it. As a bookseller, I loved that she was a bookseller; it's not a very glamourous or sexy job, so it's not often shown, but I recognised several of our regular customers in the regulars here and it was great to see.
One thing that did catch me; while this is of course fiction, in real life finding a boyfriend or girlfriend is not a cure for OCD, which Flo seems to have. I'm lucky enough not to have it and can't say anything about it's depiction here, but it did just seem a bit strange in an otherwise really lovely ending.
I'd read another novel by Sophia in the future, or even a continuation of this one. I'd love to know what happened next and I think there's plenty more story in these characters.
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