The First Last Kiss by Ali Harris

Those who read my book reviews regularly know that in between my heavy, mind boggling, brain frying fiction, I have to throw in a couple easy reads.  They are like palate cleansers in between courses when eating a rich, extravagant (read ludicrously expensive) meal.  These books aren't any less enjoyable necessarily but they don't tend to stick with me after I've read them.

I met the author, Ali Harris, at an event hosted by Simon and Schuster, and read her first book, Miracle on Regent Street, first.  Because that's the kinda girl I am.  First things first.  I wasn't looking forward to reading her second novel after the first simply because I had really liked Ali but hadn't really liked her first book and I didn't want to write something not great about her second book.

 

I knew, however, that my integrity as a book reviewer meant I had to take the bad with the good. 

 

The book uses a unique device of heading each chapter in one of three different ways:

1. Time of day on one particular day
2. A type of kiss
3. A moment in the past identified by a marker from a DVD or video tape, eg FF or REW or PLAY

Chapter types 1 and 2 tend to be short, very short, but help set the scene for the type 3 chapters.  This approach captured my imagination straight away.  The characters then captured my heart.

We meet Molly when she is young, lonely, trying to find herself and her place in the world.  Not an entirely likable character, Molly grows and learns to love herself and love others.  Who amongst us hasn't been there?

Ryan is the perfect Essex boy who spots the lovable Molly underneath all her false goth bravado and slowly chips away at that chip on her shoulder and the ice in her heart.

 

Casey is Molly's flawed BFF and I recognised an old friend of mine straight away in her character.  the novel is peppered with exquisitely drawn parents, in-laws and co-workers who all season our own love lives.

 

But this isn't a simple girl hates boy, girl loves boy, happily ever after story.  About halfway through the story takes a left turn and heads you down a path I never saw coming.

 

I'm not afraid to admit it.  I sobbed.  The pages of my book are crinkled where my tears fell.  At times I couldn't read for my blurry eyes.  But I wouldn't put the book down.  My husband was alarmed when upon returning home finding me in the same place he had left me hours before only now surrounded with piles of used tissues and the tears still flowing down my cheeks.

 

OK, I'm a sap for a good story.  And a good cry.

 

I finished this book over a week ago and it is still inside my head.  My husband kissed me the other day and I found myself thinking about hanging on to that moment, that tenderness, that feeling, forever.

 

Read this book and you will never kiss or be kissed again in quite the same way.  It wins 5 stars from me. 

 

NOTE:  Publication date for this book is January 2013 so you can't give it as a Christmas gift.  Feel free to preorder!

Miracle on Regent Street by Ali Harris

My brain needed some reading candy after the grind of The Quincunx and this lovely little book was just the ticket. 

Evie Taylor is stuck in life working the stockroom of a fading gem of a department store, Hardy's, after her life is devastated when her boyfriend, Jamie, leaves her.  She is drab and invisible.  But when the future of Hardy's is threatened with the takeover by the sleek competition, she assembles a merry band of elves from the store's other downtrodden misfits to transform it into a vintage wonderland.  she does all this whilst being courted by two very deserving men.  Which one is going to win the girl and will the store be transformed in time to escape a hostile takeover?

Like a bag of candy floss, the story was very sweet in places, even corny.  I jarred a bit at the stolen line from Pretty Woman when Joel, the suave, debonair, and impossibly perfect American, orders the entire Claridge's breakfast menu when he doesn't know what she wants for breakfast.  It would have been ok if the movie had been referenced, but it wasn't.

But there isn't a more perfect love story to get you in the mood for Christmas.  I loved all the references to the way London is transformed at Christmas time and I wished for a real store similar to Hardy's so I could go there and do all my Christmas shopping.  I particularly enjoyed the critical remark of Regent Street being decorated like one big Disney advert.

I really liked all the characters who worked in the store, even if they were a bit cliched.  My favourite characters were the Polish cleaners and their accent.  Even the names the author chose for the characters were perfectly ludicrous. I found myself speaking their parts out loud.

There was some timing issues like how Evie was able to get to work at 7 am when she was helping her sister, Delilah, get them ready for school.  I don't know about you, but my children get up for school at that time.  There is no way they would be up before 6 am.  I also found the selfish, self-centeredness and self absorbed side of Evie hard to swallow when she cared so much for everyone at the store.  That was of course all explained at the end but it did feel a little too neat and tidy of a sweep under the rug of such brutal treatment of her sister.

Also, the throwaway remark about her sister being diagnosed with depression but still doing a Christmas dinner was caustic to someone who suffers from depression and knows that heating up a pizza is hard work with in the throes of such a debilitating mental illness.

But do NOT let any of that stop you from reading this novel if what you are looking for is something, sweet, short and light with a happy ending all tied up nicely with a bow.  Especially over the upcoming holidays.  It would make a perfect stocking stuffer for that special woman in your life!