Book Review - French Coast: a novel by Anita Hughes - #20BooksofSummer - Rachel Reads Randomly Book #31

Amazon UK

Title: French Coast: A Novel

Author: Anita Hughes

Format reviewed: Paperback

Source: Competition Win

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Publication Date: 7th April 2015

Rating: 4 Stars

Serena has the job she's always dreamed of and Chase, the man her heart never dared to. As a new editor at Vogue, she bags the biggest interview of the year with Yvette Renault, the infamous former editor of French Vogue, in The Carlton-InterContinental Hotel during the Cannes Film Festival. She eagerly jets off to France while Chase stays home, working with her father, a former senator, on his upcoming mayoral campaign.

Everything feels unbelievably perfect...until it doesn't. The hotel loses her reservation hours before her big interview. Serena fears that she'll have to go home without her story, but then she meets Zoe, a quirky young woman staying in the suite below Yvette's who invites Serena to stay with her. Serena is grateful for her mysterious roommate's generosity, but it seems that there's more to her story than meets the eye. To make matters worse, soon after arriving in Cannes, Serena learns a shocking secret about her parents' marriage, and it isn't long before she begins to question her own relationship.With her deadline looming and pressure mounting, Serena will have to use her investigative journalism skills, new 

friendships, and a little luck to get her life and love back on track. Fast paced and impeccably written, 
French Coast will draw readers in to the intoxicating world of the Cote D'Azur. Hughes' beautiful prose and sense imagery bring the food, fashion, and feel of the ocean to life in this audacious new novel.

I won a copy of French Coast around a year ago, and in the past year there have been a few times when I was going to pick it up to start reading, but something stopped me. After reading my first Anita Hughes book earlier this year I was even more apprehensive about starting French Coast, purely as I wasn't really sure what to expect...

...what I discovered very early on was that I was enjoying French Coast a whole deal and really felt as though I was reading a story, or in fact multiple stories set around Cannes, on the French Riviera. 

Serena is a journalist and in her biggest job ever has to interview former French Vogue editor Yvette, in Cannes for a month, to help write her memoirs. The hotel has no record of Serena's reservation and she ends up sharing a suite with a kind young women called Zoe Pistachio. But just why is Zoe willing to share a suite with a stranger?

I loved hearing Yvette reminisce about her love life to be precise, as well as Serena's time on the French Coast. Serena is having a mixed time of things, as she meets a new man who keep popping up, and both she and Zoe have a whole variety of family dramas to deal with. 

With a fabulous mix of glitz, glamour, sun and summer, this is a gorgeous summery beach read, especially if you are going on holiday to the south of France yourself. There are ups and downs and the book moves along at a reasonable pace, and its clear the author has been to the area, as I could just imagine myself in some of the locations. 

I enjoyed French Coast far more than I was anticipating, which just shows that even the books you can't recall why you bought and are languishing somewhere on a TBR list, are worth a try at some point. 

Thank you to everyone who voted for this, just shows that people read my comments and don't just go for the pictures posted on twitter each week! It was 4th time at least lucky on Rachel Reads Randomly for French Coast. Very curious as always to see what you will pick for me next, as you all seem to have impeccable taste. 

Book Review - Island in the Sea by Anita Hughes

Amazon UK

Title: Island in the Sea: A Majorca love story

Author: Anita Hughes

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: St Martin's Griffin

Publication Date: 12th April 2016

Rating:  3 Stars

Juliet Lyman is a senior executive at Yesterday Records. Music is her passion and she's very good at her job. That's why her famously philanthropic boss Gideon sends her to Majorca, Spain to work with a very tortured, but talented client. Lionel Harding is one of the best song writers of the 20th century, the multi-Grammy award-winning lyricist of the third most recorded song in history. But now he's 42 and six months overdue on the his latest paid assignment. Juliet is not leaving Majorca without either new lyrics or a very large check.

To Juliet, business comes first. Emotions are secondary, and love isn't even on the menu. But to Lionel, love is everything, and he blames Gideon for his broken heart. He's determined to show Juliet that nothing is more important than love, but Juliet is just as determined to get Lionel to create the music that made him famous. If she can sign up local talent, even better. Her new friend Gabriella has a voice like an angel, but she's not interested in fame. Her grandmother, Lydia, wants the world for Gabriella, and she wants Juliet's help to give it to her.

As her professional and personal lives start to mix for the first time, Juliet is forced to reevaluate her priorities. Gideon hasn't been totally honest, and love may be the only thing that gives them all what they need.

I had been really looking forward to returning to Majorca a country where I lived for 2 summers, in the pages of this book, but unfortunately Island in the Sea didn't really live up to my expectations. Please don't get me wrong I liked the book, thought it was a good story, but just lacked the spark in all directions to make me really want to rave about it. 

I love the island of Majorca but with the exception of the specific town names and the mention of the Tramuntana Mountains, I didn't get a proper feel that the book was set there, and could have arguably been on any Spanish island. Well until one place Juliet visited right near the end which did resonate with me, but by then my overall impression had already been formed. 

There was definitely a sense of Spain in the story, and loved all the descriptions of meals that the characters ate, in the small tavernas and restaurants. Part of the book was also set in Los Angeles but again I didn't really get a proper sense of the place, which is disappointing. 

When a country is named in the subtitle of a book, I would have hoped to have felt transported there, and Anita Hughes just didn't achieve that for me with this story. 

There are three main love stories being told in Island in the Sea. There is the one Juliet is having with someone she meets on the island. There is songwriter Lionel's first love being recounted in segments to Juliet, and also Gabriella's with her love of her life. 

All the love stories were lovely, but at no point during the book did I feel a proper connection to any character. I liked reading about them all, and could imagine all the scenes in my mind, but found I didn't really care about them as well rounded people, or if any of them would get a happy ending or not. 

Island in the Sea was easy enough to read, a pleasant way to spend some time, and as a story I did like it, but felt that it could have been so much more improved that it was. I have a couple of other books to read by Anita Hughes, and I'm still wanting to read them, to get a more rounded view of what to expect from the author. 

Thank you to St Martin's Griffin and Netgalley for this review copy. This was my honest opinion.