One Perfect Summer

‘One Perfect Summer‘ is written by Paige Toon. It tells the story of Alice who has been taken down to Dorset by her Mum, to have a holiday and time together before she leaves to go to university in Cambridge. First of all Alice wonders how she can possibly survive this, however when she meets Joe, who works at a local pub she quickly changes her mind.

Of course a relationship starts between the two, what else would you expect from a Paige Toon story?! Alice realises that Joe isn’t happy where he is and knowing that he’s soon planning to move to London, she suggests that he comes with her to Cambridge instead.

On one of her last days in Dorset, Joe disappears. When Alice gets back home to London, she searches for him and when she moves onto Cambridge, she does the same, but Joe is no-where to be seen. After a while she decides to stop moping after him and to get on with her life, taking up a job as a punter and making a great friend in Jessie. She meets a guy called Lukas and things start to get serious, however Joe is always at the back of her mind and when she hears news of him, she feels compelled to go and see him.

This was a great read, I loved that the first part of the story was set in Dorset. Having holidayed there a lot in my childhood, I knew exactly where Paige Toon was talking about. With mentions of Corfe Castle and Old Harry Rocks, it allowed me to see the story as it happened. I must also mention that there is a great sequel to this, ‘One Perfect Christmas’, which is another great read, yet disappointedly a much shorter story, you’re left wanting more!

OTHER REVIEWS OF BOOKS BY PAIGE TOON

Lucy in the Sky
Johnny Be Good
Baby Be Mine
Chasing Daisy
Pictures of Lily

My Girl

‘My Girl‘ is written by Jack Jordan, and it is a great psychological thriller that’ll keep you reading until the very last word, with some shocking events happening throughout.

The story starts when we are introduced to Paige, a woman who’s in a mess. After the murder of daughter Chloe and the suicide of husband Ryan, her life is in a mess. Only getting by on the dependance of drugs and alcohol, life isn’t looking too great. Then strange things start to happen. Her husband’s clothes disappear from the wardrobe and Paige wakes up one day to see an old home video playing on the television screen. She can’t explain how these things have happened, she knows inside that she didn’t do it herself, yet there seems to be no logical explanation to these events.

With things getting worse and worse for Paige, although her remaining family step in to help, they believe that these events were caused by Paige in a drunken state. Although she denies having anything to do with it all, they just think she can’t remember.

Things start to get interesting as Paige finds out secrets from her late husband’s life, and she becomes determined to find out why he took his own life.

This is a great read if you want something that’ll keep you gripped from beginning to end. I loved this book and at one point, it gave me the greatest shock that any book has ever given me, I just hoped that Paige would be able to survive it and well, you’ll have to give it a read to find out what I’m on about!

Pictures of Lily

If you haven’t guessed it by now let me tell you, I’m a great fan of the books written by Paige Toon, and her forth release ‘Pictures of Lily‘, is another great read from her collection.

The story starts off with Lily, aged 15 (soon to turn 16), who’s just moved to Adelaide in Australia with her Mum and they’re both about to move in with Mum’s new boyfriend, Michael and his son Josh.

At first Lily finds it hard to settle in, but when Michael invites her to join him at the local conservation park one day, she finds a new life for herself as later on she gets an invite to come back and help out more with the animals. Another something that she finds there is Ben, a man aged 28 who she falls in love with. After spending a lot of time together, her love for him grows, however knowing that he is a lot older and finally finding out that he is engaged, means that nothing happens between them. Despite all the electricity, Ben then leaves for England to marry his fiancée.

The story then skips to ten years later, Lily is now aged 26 and has definitely not forgotten about Ben. Lily, however, is happily together with boyfriend Richard, living in Sydney. Everything seems fine and dandy until one day when visiting the zoo, she bumps into an old friend. This is where the drama starts and well I’m not going to tell you what happens, because then there would be no point in you picking up this book to read it. If you don’t do that, you’ll be missing out on another great read from  Paige Toon!

I loved this story and identified with the lead character Lily, and her love for all the animals at the conservation park in Adelaide. I would love to have her job! As always there’s complications in the life of the lead character but out of it all, something positive is born.

OTHER REVIEWS OF BOOKS BY PAIGE TOON

Lucy in the Sky
Johnny Be Good
Baby Be Mine
Chasing Daisy