NEW RELEASE
Just a Girl Standing In Front of a Boy - Lucy-Anne Holmes (2014)
Jenny Taylor is Miss I Want A Nice Sensible Love. She's experienced the traumatic fall from grace of a love betrayed and she doesn't want to go there again thank you very much. So she's been avoiding that magical, heart-stopping love ever since and has settled for practical, hardworking Matt, much to her best friend Philippa's chagrin. When she meets Joe King however, it seems that really special love has come a-knocking. But can Jenny risk humiliation and shame again and what about good old dependable Matt. Just as things are getting crazy for Jenny, her mum, with whom she has a strained relationship at best, turns up on her doorstep, having left Jenny's dad and acting all weird. Thank goodness for Philippa and her Smiling Fanny Manifesto - a list of 10 rules to brighten Jenny's day - and flatmate Al who always has her back. With its quintessentially rom-com title and stylish cover, it's clear you can expect something special from this book. It's one of those books where you think I'll just read one more page and before you know it you've finished it because you haven't been able to put it down. For me this isn't a particularly regular occurrence so Just a Girl definitely stands out. Jenny is a wonderfully quirky and adorable character and with sidekick Philippa they really do make quite the double act. Who wouldn't want to be the recipient of one of their compassionate notes, take part in Fashion Friday or go on a musketeer mission with them? And Joe King is a swoonworthy hero who restores your faith in romance. The plot is not the predictable affair it could be and there are several unexpected moments, often for the better, although one moment completely confounded me. Similarly the ending is not quite what you would anticipate yet is powerful and touching. Throughout, Holmes' writing is top quality. Smiling Fanny Manifesto rule 11: Read Just a Girl Standing in Front of a Boy - it's a perfect chick lit read. (JC)
The title of Lucy-Anne Holmes' latest novel Just a Girl, Standing in Front of a Boy invokes one of the infamous lines from the Notting Hill movie. The summary says: "My love story may not be the sort you read about in books or see in films . . . Love stories have glorious highs and ghastly lows. But when it comes to my own life, I'd have to say, you can keep your fabulous highs and I'll happily steer clear of the terrible lows. After a rocky start in life, Jenny Taylor, 27, star receptionist at the local doctors surgery, has things all worked out thanks to a list of ten daily things she must do to keep the blues at bay. But her life is turned upside down when she meets aspiring musician Joe King. And reliable boyfriend Matt proposes. And then her mum leaves her dad and moves into Jenny's flat determined to 'bond'." Just a Girl, Standing in Front of a Boy is out in January 2014.