You Are Viewing 2004 releases

What do you do after you walk down the aisle in four weddings in a few months-none of them your own? What’s left after you’ve donned the must-have-not dresses of the season, forked over your cash, and fake-smiled your way through countless photos? After you’ve dealt with the smashed guest, the smooshed cake, the dashed hopes, and the missed bouquets? That’s what Cate Padgett is starting to wonder, as she embarks on stint after stint on the sidelines, watching friends swap bar-hopping for baby-naming…while her own love life goes nowhere fast. But is Cate unwilling to settle down-or just unwilling to settle? And can anyone really judge her if they haven’t walked in her dyed-to-match shoes? Wild, witty, and full of weddings to cry over, Always the Bridesmaid is an endearingly romantic comedy about standing out in the crowd even when everyone’s wearing the same celery-green dress…and daring to make every day The Happiest Day of Your Life.

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Becky thought being married to Luke Brandon would be one big Tiffany box of happiness. But to be honest, it’s not quite as dreamy as she’d hoped. The trouble started on honeymoon, when she told Luke the tiniest little fib, about the teeniest little purchase. Now she’s on a strict budget, she doesn’t have a job - and worst of all her beloved Suze has a new best friend. Then she receives some incredible news. She has a long-lost sister! Becky has never been more excited. Finally, a real sister! They’ll have so much in common! They can go shopping together…choose shoes together…have manicures together…Until she meets her - and gets the shock of her life. It can’t be true. Surely Becky Bloomwood’s long-lost sister can’t…hate shopping? A sister, a soulmate, a skinflint?

Leah: I suppose you can guess from the title that the books revolve around someone who likes to shop and while that is a huge focus on the first two books, it isn’t as in your face with the next two. Shopaholic Ties The Knot was mainly focused on Becky’s wedding to Luke and this one, Shopaholic & Sister, is focused on Becky’s new-found, long-lost sister Jess and the relationship she envisages the pair of them having. Yes, there’s still a lot of shopping to be done, but nowhere near as close as the shopping she does in the first two books. Obviously it would get a bit boring if Becky continually fought debt problems so these new problems and struggles make a welcome change. The letters from banks and shops and what-not are still interspersed between chapters (and are as hilarious as ever). I could wax lyrical for hours and hours about how fantastic Sophie Kinsella is. I mean, four books in and the books aren’t tired or getting boring, they haven’t jumped the shark in anyway. It’s a series like I’ve never read before. Not many books could get to the fourth book and still be fantastic and enjoyable reads.

Chloe: I hate to start off on a negative, but this is my least favourite book in the whole series. I felt that Becky having a surprise sister was one surprise too far for the books really, and I felt that Jess just didn’t fit in with the feel of the books, and so I had pretty much set my mind to disliking it unfortunately! Yes, there are things from the old books such as letters and Becky’s problems that are just as funny as before, but I remember reading it for the first time, and having to force myself to pick it up again which is unheard of with me and a Sophie Kinsella book. I’d happily re-read all of the series up to this and after it, but I am pretty sure I won’t be reading this one again, sorry!

Danielle: Truly, what could be better than Becky with a sister? You’d think it would be twice as much fun, but much to Becky’s dismay her sister is nothing like her and their relationship may be less than ideal. This was really a fun one in the series, because there were things I could reflect back on with my relationships with my own sisters. Granted, I think my sisters are quite a bit more like me than Becky and Jess, but it was still incredibly fun. I’m right there with Leah in saying that Sophie Kinsella is fantastic. Though I enjoyed this one in the series, it wasn’t my favorite (so far that would be the first book), but I still couldn’t manage to put it down. And how many books have that ability? Let alone, an entire series?

Rosie Dunne and Alex Stewart have been friends since they were 5 years old. Years later Alex and his family move to Boston. Rosie plans to follow him there but something happens which forces Rosie to abandon her plans.

As the years go by, the pair keep in regular contact but their friendship is put under tremendous strain through a variety of things.

Are the pair destined to ever be together or will they always be just best friends?

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Under normal circumstances, Izzie and Maddy would never have met. Their lives are a million miles apart - Izzie is bohemian and skint, Maddy is Gucci-clad and loaded. But, thanks to their respective husbands’ careers, both have been dumped into the English countryside, fish out of water with five young children between them.

Thrown together at a ghastly women’s lunch, they quickly discover a shared longing for mucky London streets and the residents’ parking permits they’ve left behind. When tragedy hits and Maddy’s world collapses, they have to make money fast.

A chance discovery leads this unlikely partnership to launch a natural cosmetics company from the kitchen table, with consequences beyond their wildest imaginings. Then the media spotlight turns on them, and Maddy and Izzie have to give up all they hold dear to embrace a lifestyle they hate. But just how far are they prepared to go?

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In the heart of County Kildare is Davenport Hall - a crumbling eighteenth-century mansion house, ancestral home to Portia Davenport, her beautiful younger sister Daisy and their dotty, eccentric mother, Lucasta.

Disaster strikes when their father abandons the family, cleaning them out of the little cash they had managed to hold on to. But a ray of hope appears when Steve Sullivan, an old family friend and confirmed bachelor, suggests that they allow the hall to be used as the location for a major new movie.

So Davenport Hall is taken over by the creme de la creme, including the self-centred Montana Jones, fresh out of rehab and anxious to kick-start her career, and Guy van der Post, a major sex symbol with an eye for Daisy. Throw in Ella Hepburn, Hollywood royalty and living legend, and soon there’s more sex and drama off-camera than on! And Portia, who’d completely given up on love, is in for quite a surprise… Read my review underneath…

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Rachel White is the consummate good girl. A hard-working attorney at a large Manhattan law firm and a diligent maid of honor to her charmed best friend Darcy, Rachel has always played by all the rules. Since grade school, she has watched Darcy shine, quietly accepting the sidekick role in their lopsided friendship. But that suddenly changes the night of her thirtieth birthday when Rachel finally confesses her feelings to Darcy’s fiance, and is both horrified and thrilled to discover that he feels the same way. As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience. In so doing, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren’t always neat, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself.

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