Billy and Me

Bookish Sophie is living in a little village and working in the local teashop when Billy Buskin walks in to her life. In the area to film yet another adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Billy takes an instant shine to Sophie, despite her not having the faintest idea who he is. But there’s a reason Sophie never ventured far from home, can she really build a life with a famous actor and will she ever live up to his exes?

“ I hate to tell you this but my life consists of books and baking.”

Billy and Me is quite a sweet little book about a village girl who finds herself in a world she doesn’t belong in. At first I was a little dubious about the celebrity wife author angle, but it is clear Giovanna Fletcher has taken inspiration from her own experiences. Sophie doesn’t want to change her life but she can’t just carry on being a teashop girl when all eyes are on Billy.

In hindsight, it’s clear the episode in the cupboard was my first experience of a panic attack, but I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew then was that I wanted to be as far away from other people as possible. The only person I cared about was Mum…but she was the only person, it seemed, who didn’t want to talk to me.

Sophie is a quiet, mad haired girl whose closest friend is the old lady who runs the teashop she works in. We know her dad is absent for some reason and her relationship with her mum is rocky. But she won’t leave her comfort zone. This lovely, kind, timid person at the start reminded me of a few people I know and she made me smile, looking after all the gossipy ladies even if she was too scared to do anything for herself.

I got a bit frustrated about her attitude once she gets to London. She has this wonderful, caring boyfriend who is happy to support her in whatever she does…so she decides to work in a crappy coffee chain. I can understand the idea of wanting independence but it just came across as a huge waste of opportunity. She’s in London and she doesn’t have to pay rent! She also came across a bit immature in handling Billy’s sex scenes. He’s an actor…the way film and TV is going these days, having fake sex people is pretty much taken for granted. I don’t doubt partners feel jealous and insecure now and then but this was a bit over the top.

I did get a bit bored in the middle but to be honest, I have no patience with celebrity lifestyles and I could see where the whole thing was going. Paul was incredibly obvious in his manoeuvrings and the narration decided to spell it out for the reader just you can’t work it out from what he says to Sophie. However I really liked that parts that were more about Sophie, her love of books and baking and her family and friendships in her home village. I’d certainly read a second book if it ventured away from the celebrity side of things. Oh and Giovanna seems to really like exclamation marks; she had characters exclaiming over sentences that didn’t need them which made some of the characters seem a bit manic at times. But there were lots of great observations about celebrity culture and its impact on the people close to them.

“Soph, what did you read? Tell me,” he urges.
“C-c-comments.”
“What comments? Wait a minute! On the internet?” he asks, as he tries to get me to let him see my face. With the amount of snot and tears I’ve been producing he has zero chance of that! “Never read those comments, Sophie. Do you know who writes that stuff? Sad, lonely people who have nothing better to do than say and write crap. They don’t know you and they don’t realize they’re talking about real people with feelings…”

Giovanna Fletcher is the wife of Tom Fletcher from McFly and Billy and Me is her debut novel. Published by Penguin, it's released tomorrow in paperback and ebook formats. Thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy for review.

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Also reviewed @ Reading in the Sunshine | Jess Hearts Books



Disclosure: I received a copy of this book free of charge for review purposes only. Receipt of a book does not guarantee a review or endorsement. My reviews are my honest opinion and are not biased for the purpose of personal gain.

Digital Shorts Round-Up

The New Hunger

I can safely say this is the best digital short I’ve read. It’s actually a full novella length at 160 pages and is a prequel to the utterly fantastic Warm Bodies. You will get more out of this by reading the novel first but it’s certainly not filler material. It follows Julie as she travels with her family in search of civilisation, Nora and her brother moving from place to place in search of food and safety and one of the undead, in his first days as he slowly becomes less human. I loved this idea as in Warm Bodies, it’s all about the zombies becoming more human and it’s interesting to see this reversal and how the inner zombie slowly wipes out humanity. I really want another full length novel out of Issac Marion, but for now, this will tide me over.

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The Witch’s Betrayal

Another prequel, this time to The Assassin’s Curse but much, much shorter at around 38 pages. It gives a little glimpse into Naji’s past and tells the tale of how he becomes scarred. There is also a bit of back story and him and Leila. Definitely worth a read if you’re reading the series, though wouldn’t work as a standalone.

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The Robot Trading Company



The Automaton’s Treasure

I’m guessing this is a prequel to The Pirate’s Wish which I haven’t read yet. It introduces Marjani who is a lady being taken away from her previous life on a passenger ship…which soon gets taken over by pirates. She befriends an automaton on board and hatches a plan to save herself. It’s a nice little adventure sorry but I wonder if it would be better read after book two in the series to give it more context.

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The Robot Trading Company



Crossing the Line

Set in the same universe as Pushing the Limits, this is Lila’s story and chronologically sits between the two novels. I didn’t remember much about Lila but she is Echo’s best friend and stood beside her. When she was at Echo’s brother’s funeral, she met Lincoln, grieving for his own brother, also being buried that day. They strike up a friendship, corresponding by letters and he soon becomes the one person Lila can confide in. Until she finds out he’s been lying. The main problem I found with this story was that the build-up of the relationship wasn’t there and they came across as a bit mushy. There were a few snippets of their letters at the start of each chapter which gave context but…I don’t know, not to the same standard as Pushing the Limits. They probably could have done with a whole book with time to do some proper character development as I quite liked Lincoln.

Currently free from Amazon.

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Incoming!

AKA Showcase Sunday

After last week's splurge, I'm kinda happy to have a small pile of paper books this week. Both were ones I'd decided not to ask for because I was trying to be restrained...and then they turned up anyway. I thought The River of No Return was going to be a bit long but, whilst the book is large, the font size is also large so I might be OK with it...I like the sound of it anyway. Pretty cover AND time travel FTW.

Very sadly, the author of The Silent Wife died recently. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a huge book this summer though, the time is definitely right for psychological thrillers.

For review:
The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison (Headline)
The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (Penguin)
Acid by Emma Pass (Random House)
Tumble & Fall by Alexandra Coutts (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
True Blood Volume 1: All Together Now (Diamond Comics)

Bought:
Seoul Survivors by Naomi Foyle

Freebies:
How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman


Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits & Tea.

What's gone on the wishlist?

It's been a while since I did a wishlist post...possibly because I've been sneakily buying books instead of saving them for later. Bad hands! But I have been adding books here and there. First up is Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. The fact its title has my name in it caught my eye at first and then it's about a girl with "mad red hair" and "mismatched clothes". It could be me! Actually it sounds really sweet and is set in the 80s. I like these pre-internet age YA novels. I can't remember where I heard about Far From the Tree but it sounds like an interesting piece on children with differences and how families adapt. Some Quiet Place is on there pretty much for that cover (don't think there's any plans for a UK release). I've seen Night Film land in a few postboxes lately and it sounds like a thriller I'd be interested in.


I really enjoyed Doppler last year and I think it was Kit who brought my attention to Naive. Super. Sister Spooky's enthusiasm for the sequel to Geekhood: Close Encounters of the Girl Kind was catching and these books sound so cute. To combat that cuteness there's The Locked Ward: Memoirs of a Psychiatric Orderly which I think I can blame the other Ellie for. Now I've got back into the Kitty series, I also popped the next book Kitty in the Underworld on the list.


I spotted The Golem and the Djinni in The Bookseller and knew straight away it was something I wanted to read. Sister-Sister is a South African book and I don't think there are any plans for a UK release. Dream London has a Joey HiFi cover; nuff said. Charlaine Harris will have a what-happens-next Sookie book out in October, so we know what happens to our favourite characters in the future and it's meant to be full of artwork too. Yay for After Dead!


Sometimes I pay attention to what Scott is raving about; Central Reservation is a ghost story set against the backdrop of foot and mouth. Joanna Kavenna was speaking on one of the Write the Future panels and I thought her book, The Birth of Love is one that's going to be either brilliant or horrendously hard to read. Stung is doing the blog rounds at the moment; love the cover and, well, deadly children! I always knew they were pests. ;) I was pawing the cover of Red Moon in Tesco the other day. It is lovely in person...am really tempted to grab it.


Sadly The Program is has only been published in the UK as an ebook, which is a shame as I really like that cover. The idea of depression as an epidemic has me intrigued. Who can resist an invisible girl story? Invisible sounds like so much fun. I cannot resist an end of the world story either, so Tumble & Fall has been added too. After finishing Stray Souls, I definitely want to read more of Kate Griffin's books and The Glass God is the next one in the Magicals Anonymous series.


So the last two additions are a bit random (I bet you're thinking my whole reading taste is random by now). The Bookseller finally wrote up the panel discussion from London Book Fair on New Adult fiction and had a selection of titles in the week's edition. I haven't really been convinced by this genre/marketing ploy yet but I promised when something came along that sounded interesting, I would give it a try. I admit, both these titles caught my eye by flashing their non NA style covers at me. The Lost Boys started out on Wattpad and seems to be a sexy ghost story. Crash is about a girl with her sights set on Juilliard and might actually be properly passionate about it (oh and I imagine there will be some sexy stuff). Actually, the current covers are the kind that are a bit off-putting (all kissy-kissy black and white) but S&S have a new edition coming out later this year.


Have you read any of these? Anything I should bump up the list or re-consider? Feel free to leave a link to your reviews in the comments if you have them!