Archive for July 8th, 2010

Chick Lit Classics is a regular feature on Chick Lit Reviews where we highlight the books we feel are classics of the chick lit genre. Feel free to discuss our choices in the comments section!

This week I have chosen Carmen Reid’s 2002 book Three In a Bed. I actually only read this for the first time last year I think but I thought it was a fantastic book and it’s stuck with me since then. Carmen’s writing style is very easy to read, and I found myself ploughing through the book in around a day because it was really good. Carmen’s books have been given a makeover so the purple cover I’ve put on here is the new version, the old one is pink. If you enjoy a well written story about the adjustment into motherhood for a city slicker, then pick up a copy of Three In A Bed, it’s a fabulous read!

“Bella is a high-achieving, go-getting management consultant who seems to have it all. She’s brilliant at her job, plays just as hard as she works and has a fantastic, sexy relationship with her husband Don. Then, she realizes that something’s missing from her life and decides to have a child (even though her husband isn’t at all keen on the idea), and her ordered world is turned upside-down. Bella’s city slicker lifestyle doesn’t go too well with morning sickness, swelling body and raging hormones. Suddenly it’s all change - she’s a sleep-deprived, emotionally-ravaged wreck, close to embarking on an affair with her former boss.”

Today’s cover wars is a UK cover vs a US cover for Olivia Darling’s book Priceless and I’m not sure which I like best. The US cover (left) is so beautiful - that red dress is stunning, but the UK cover looks so classy and elegant. I’m completely unable to choose one, so let me know which you prefer!

At two international auction houses, fine art experts vie to get the world’s most fabulous and expensive paintings into their salerooms. At Ludbrooks of London, Lizzy Duffy does her best get ahead as an auctioneer, while her boss Nat Wilde takes advantage of her in more ways than one. Meanwhile Carrie Klein, number two fine art expert at Ehrenpreis in New York has been charged with opening Ehrenpreis’s new operation in London, and she’s determined that it’s going to make her name. And in a draughty farmhouse in Cornwall, impoverished artist Serena Macdonald struggles to support her young daughter by painting family pets. Until a mistake leads to a cottage industry in ‘old masters’ - and a daring sting…

Everyone must know by now that the fabulous Sophie Kinsella is actually a pseudonym, right? And before she was Sophie Kinsella, and before our beloved Becky Bloomwood was created, Sophie wrote books under her proper name of Madeleine Wickham. She wrote 7 books under her real name and her publishers have - yippee! - decided to re-publish the books! There are currently four up on Amazon (we’ll be posting about Cocktails For Three and Sleeping Arrangements next week): Cocktails For Three (19th August), Sleeping Arrangements (14th October), The Wedding Girl (9th December) and The Gatecrasher (3rd March 2011). The only one to have a cover up is The Wedding Girl, which I adore, and here is the synopsis:

At the age of eighteen, in that first golden Oxford summer, Milly was up for anything. Rupert and his American lover Allan were all part of her new, exciting life, and when Rupert suggested to her that she and Allan should get married, just so that Allan could stay in the country, Milly didn’t hesitate, and to make it seem real she dressed up in cheap wedding finery and posed on the steps of the registry office for photographs. Ten years later, Milly is a very different person. Engaged to Simon - who is wealthy, serious, and believes her to be perfect - she is facing the biggest and most elaborate wedding imaginable. Her mother has it planned to the finest detail, from the massive marquee to the sculpted ice swans filled with oysters. Her dreadful secret is locked away so securely she has almost persuaded herself that it doesn’t exist - until, with only four days to go, her past catches up with her. Suddenly, her carefully constructed world is about to crash in ruins around her. How can she tell Simon she’s already married? How can she tell her mother? But as the crisis develops, more secrets are revealed than Milly could possibly have realised…