Book Review - The One with All the Bridesmaids by Erin Lawless - Blog Tour via @gilbster1000

Amazon UK

Title: The One With All the Bridesmaids

Author: Erin Lawless

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Harper Impulse

Publication Date: 21 July 2017

Rating: 5 Stars

Nora Dervan is ready for her Happy Ever After. With her darling Harry waiting at the altar, and all her family and friends around her. She is certain that her special day will not be forgotten/will be one to remember…

But with her four bridesmaids hiding more secrets, than bottles of champagne. Will her big day be remembered for all the right reasons?

Bea has barely gotten past the fact that her two best friends are dating, and now they’re engaged, whilst cupid’s arrow points in a forbidden direction for Cleo. She is so distracted by her off limits, hot new colleague that she has forgotten Daisy, who has been left dreading the singles table. There’s more romance in the cheesy pick- up lines than Sarah’s own marriage, which hasn’t turned out as she hoped it would be.

With her wicked sense of humour and refreshingly honest voice, Erin Lawless brings to the life the romance (and horrors!) of wedding season.

This is the perfect pick-me-up, I spent so much of the first bit of the book laughing at various aspects of wedding planning, and then as the story progressed I found myself really involved with all four bridesmaids lives, as the big wedding approaches. 

For this book is far more about Bea, Cleo, Daisy and Sarah and their lives, than about Nora, the bride, so we really get to see things from many perspectives, and there are multiples romances to hope for, or to deal with difficulties with. 

Some of the wedding party, including the groomsmen, have all known each other since school days, and others are more recent additions to the gang.  It really is a story of female friendships and I loved seeing how the girls dealt with the four major events in the planning of a wedding - engagement party, wedding dress shopping, hen party and of course the big day itself. 

At the start of some of the chapters there are real life anecdotes from real weddings, which fit into the book really well. As I read them I was reminded of the off cuts in When Harry Met Sally when every now and then you would get real people talking about relationships, this had a similar feel to me, and I loved reading them as much as I enjoyed the book itself. 

There are so many characters and threads of story in this book that even if you aren't too keen on one of the bridesmaids, there are plenty of others to keep you going.  Wedding dress shopping had some hilarious moments, as did the hen party. I don't want to say much about them as I would probably spoil things. 

I'm not sure I can properly explain how much I enjoyed this book, it was a pleasure to read, with a great sense of humour, and it was so refreshing to read a story about a wedding and its planning but from the perspective of those all important bridesmaids. 

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Harper Impulse for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Take a look at all the other dates on this blog tour for more from Erin Lawless. 

Cover Reveal - The One with the Engagement Party by Erin Lawless

I am so very excited about this cover reveal, that I can't believe I didn't accidentally leak it onto twitter, as I was tempted to when I saw how pretty it is. So without further ado, here is one of Erin Lawless' bridesmaids to help out with the reveal.

The only information about this book on Amazon at the moment is a note saying "Save the date". I do know that The One with the Engagement Party is the first of the new Bridesmaids series, which is split into four enticing sounding novellas.

I'm also loving that each book in the series sounds like it could be from an episode of Friends, which is adding to my excitement. 

I met Erin Lawless last year and we were chatting for ages, and she seemed very excited about this new series of novellas, and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy too. 

The One with the Engagement Party is available for pre-order from Amazon and will be published on 26th May 2016.

And if the glimpse of the cover at the end of the video isn't enough, here is the cover once again for you to gaze at for as long as you like! 

Book Review - Somewhere Only We Know by Erin Lawless

Amazon UK

Title: Somewhere Only We Know

Author: Erin Lawless

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Harper Impulse

Publication Date: 11th June 2015

Rating: 5 Stars

Boy meets girl…

Alex Bradley can't help but feel that life is rather passing him by. And not just life – promotions, invitations, romance; the girl he loves only has eyes for his flatmate and his 9-5 job as the Immigration department skivvy is slowly numbing his soul. Until he meets Nadia.

Girl meets boy…

Nadia Osipova is running out of time. With no money, no lawyer and a totally fictitious boyfriend, she’s got one last summer and one last appeal before the British government deport her back home.

Girl gets deported?

It's going to be a bumpy ride, one she's dragging her new friend Alex along for. As Nadia races through a list of all her favourite London adventures, for what may be the last time, Alex can’t help but start to see the city, and his life, through Nadia’s eyes.

From hazy summer days on the Common and heady nights in Soho’s basement bars, to twilight walks along the Southbank, will Alex realise what he’s got before it’s too late?

I really wasn't too sure what to expect from this book. I know a lot of people enjoyed Erin's first book, but I haven't read it yet, and then I saw the word immigration in the blurb. I was very worried this would be some sort of highly political book potentially with an asylum seeker (and not really my sort of read). I could not have been more wrong. 

This is actually a wonderful story about friendship. It just so happens that Alex, works in the immigration department, and remembered reading Nadia Osipova's letter, while applying for long term stay in the UK. 

And then at a pub quiz that his flatmate and flatmate's girlfriend dragged Alex along to, he meets Nadia in person. Suddenly he is faced with a real person and not just a piece of paper. And what a real person Nadia is. 

The whole book focuses around Nadia, who is Russian and been living in the UK since her early teens, having been sent to boarding school there. She is hoping against all hopes not to be deported, and the book takes us up right through to the appeal against the original decision. 

While awaiting her court date she gets to know Alex as a friend, and since Alex doesn't really do much apart from hate his job, and play video games, she insists he comes with her, as she fills in her bucket list of things she want's to do around London, or wants to do a final time, in case she has to say goodbye to her home. 

Alex is currently suffering from unrequited love of his flatmate, Rory's girlfriend Lila. Alex although cynical about Nadia's plan at first, soon starts to enjoy himself and find another side to his personality.

Somewhere Only We Know takes you to a London that isn't often seen, to a more hidden side of London, and as a North Londoner myself, the less often visited south of the river side of the capital. From some of the more obvious touristy things to do, to things completely off the beaten path, you discover parts of London, along with Nadia and Alex. 

SOWK alternates between Nadia and Alex's view points, and with that you get to know a lot about their friendships and flatmates. I loved seeing the friendship grow from both perspectives.

I found Somewhere Only We Know to be a fantastic story, and a book that kept me guessing right until the end. There were a few obvious possible endings, and the outcome was one I hadn't seen coming. Always like a surprise somewhere in a story. 

Although this book is published by Harper Impulse, a publisher that keen blog follower may have noticed I love, this book isn't really a romance like you often get. Yes there is some romance but what blew me away was the deepening emotional connection between Alex and Nadia. 

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Harper Impulse. This was my honest review.