Isobel Graves left England to make it as a TV presenter in glamorous LA. But after two years spent dressed as a prawn or a tomato handing out leaflets, she decides she has had enough and wants to try to get the life she keeps dreaming about. A life that involves her childhood husband Andrew Parker. She only needs to find him. Flying from LA to London to a small island in Malaysia, Iz faces hilarious challenges in search of the man who could be The One. This is a hilariously brilliant novel. I loved the character of Isobel – she’s funny, sweet, a good friend, and a Harry Potter lover (“I do secretly believe that if I hope enough somewhere Hogwarts does exist and one day I will receive my letter telling me I am a witch and I can go there and my patronus would be a squirrel.”). I kept laughing out aloud at the funny and weird situations in which she found herself in, from the attack of a family of monkeys to cleaning turtle poo from a tank. A real page-turner I couldn’t put down. (NP)
How to Find Your (First) Husband, by Rosie Blake, about a woman on a globetrotting quest to find her first love. The summary says: "It's a beautiful day in 1994 and the turn-out in the school playground is fantastic. Isobel is eight years old and marrying Andrew Parker, the boy of her dreams. Life is perfect. Then the ceremony is over, and a week later so is the marriage.
Twenty years on and Isobel is dressed as a prawn handing out promotional fliers outside an LA fish market. Her career is going nowhere and her love life leaves a lot to be desired. Nothing Isobel hoped for has gone to plan. Then, she catches sight of Andrew, her first husband, in the background of a TV news item and wonders: if she can track down Andrew, will she recapture the happiness that she felt all those years ago?
Isobel travels the globe to find her first husband, via Cornwall, Devon and a remote Malaysian island, but is he really what she is looking for?" How to Find Your (First) Husband is out in June 2016.