Book Review - Sorry Not Sorry by Sophie Ranald

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Amazon UK

Title: Sorry Not Sorry

Author: Sophie Ranald

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Bookouture

Publication Date: 13th February 2019

Rating: 4 Stars

A fabulously feel-good novel that will make you laugh till you cry and leave you living life to the full, margarita in hand! 

Is this all there is? I scraped the last dregs of Caramel Chew Chew ice cream out of the bottom of the tub with my finger and licked it. It left a sticky smear on my phone’s screen when I typed into Google, “How to find love, sex and happiness.”

Charlotte has always been a good girl. But being good is getting boring…

She’s not just stuck in a rut – she’s buried in it up to her chin. The only company she has in bed is the back catalogue of Netflix and falling in love feels like the stuff of fairy tales. So when she stumbles across a popular podcast, ‘Sorry Not Sorry’, which challenges women to embrace their inner bad girl, she jumps at the chance to shake things up.

Old Charlotte would never ask for a stranger’s number, go on a blind date or buy lacy lingerie… But New Charlotte is waving goodbye to her comfort zone (with a side order of margaritas). And it turns out that good things happen to bad girls…

After a bit of a slow start, where I was struggling to work out who worked where, and what all the characters connections were - admittedly I was very tired when I read the first half of the book, which possibly affected my initial enjoyment - I'm glad I continued as I thoroughly enjoyed the second half of the book. 

What really intrigued me initially and kept me reading was the pod cast series that Charlotte was following called Sorry Not Sorry, all about getting in touch with your inner bad girl. I loved all the various challenges that were set and how Charlotte tried to embrace them. 

There were a couple of men in the book and I always had a weird inkling who she may end up with.  I really enjoyed the hot and steamy times she had with Miles, the office architect, although whether I ever trusted him would be another matter. 

Getting to know Tansy, Charlottes new flat mate was enjoyable, and I was interested in what she was clearly hiding.  And when the secret was revealed it made me think too. 

After around 50% was when I became properly engaged with the story, and found it was coming together in my mind more. I found I was really caring about the characters, and was interested to see how various situations would resolve themselves.  

There are even a good selection of people to hate if you are that way incline, and Charlotte's job exhausted me just thinking about it. 

An enjoyable book, and the hint in the notes at the back that we may get more books featuring  Tansy and Adam, Charlotte's other flatmates is rather intriguing, and I really hope we do as I'd love to get to know Tansy even more. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for this copy which i have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Guest Post - Writing The Truth About Gemma Grey by Sophie Ranald - Blog Tour

When I look back over the past 18 months, it seems incredible to me that my first novel, It Would Be Wrong to Steal my Sister’s Boyfriend (Wouldn’t It?) took just 12 weeks to write. The process of getting Gemma from glimmer of an idea to finished novel has been somewhat different!

When I first pitched the idea to my agent at LAW, then the lovely Peta Nightingale, the concept was around a blogger who wrote posts describing a life far more glamorous and interesting than the one she was actually living. Peta liked the idea, but she said, “Of course, you must make her a vlogger, not a blogger, because this is 2016, LDO.”

Now I hadn’t been living under a rock, so I knew that vloggers – YouTubers – were a Thing. But that was pretty much all I knew. My education into the world of vlogging had to start pretty much from scratch, and that meant watching Zoella videos. A lot of Zoella videos. It got so my partner would come downstairs and find me gazing vacantly at my screen and say, “You’re watching that Zoella again, aren’t you?”

The more I watched, the more I realised that first, Peta was right and second, my initial idea was going to have to change somewhat. YouTubers live their entire lives in the public eye, and it would be immensely difficult for Gemma, if she were one of them, to pull off a double life. So I had to go back to the drawing board and rethink things.

The other thing I wrestled with, watching make-up tutorial after make-up tutorial, was what motivates their creators. Money? Certainly, the likes of Zoella have built hugely successful businesses from humble beginnings and made a fortune in the process. But (like authors!) only a lucky few achieve anything like this degree of success. So I had to give Gemma a motive other than money or fame… Enter Jack and Olivia.

My next challenge was to give Gemma a cause to care about. Many YouTubers do this, embracing politics, mental health, HIV education and so on, and using the audiences they have built up to spread the word about something that matters to them. This was something I’d decided on quite early in the process, and I was greatly looking forward to writing it. Unfortunately, Life intervened at this point.

My partner and I moved house. The place we bought thinking it would need minor cosmetic work turned out to need major structural work, and I spent the next few months mired in architects’ drawings, helical screws and builder’s crack stitching kits (yes, really). By the time I returned to  Gemma, the world had moved on to the point where my wonderful plot point was no longer relevant, and I had to bin and rewrite about 20,000 words. Gutting doesn’t even cover it.

So, what with one thing and another, the process of writing this novel was anything but smooth. At 110,000 words, it’s longer than my previous novels, too. Nonetheless, I’m really excited to have released it at last. Even though writing it was tough, there were still many of those moments every author longs for, when the words flow easily, the characters take on a life of their own, and before you know it you’ve spent hours immersed in their world and the cat is complaining that she’s about to lapse into a hypoglycaemic coma (or is that just Purrs?).

Thanks to Rachel for hosting this post and being part of the Gemma Grey release tour, and thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy the novel – please get in touch and let me know what you think.  

Thank you so much Sophie for sharing your story behind your new book. I look forward to reading it at some point in the future, The Truth About Gemma Grey sounds great. 

Genre: Chick lit/romantic comedy

Release Date: 19 June 2017

Life isn’t working out quite as Gemma had planned. Her breakthrough job turns out to involve writing clickbait articles about cats. Her boyfriend Jack is off travelling the world with his glamorous BFF and her mum’s social life puts Gemma’s own to shame.

Then, after a late-night online rant, Gemma’s YouTube channel goes viral and everything changes.

Suddenly, she’s living the dream – only it’s not turning out entirely as she imagined.

Gemma realises she’ll have to choose between fame, real love and being true to herself – because she can’t have it all. Or can she?

BUY LINKS

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071KKJ5JL

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071KKJ5JL/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sophie Ranald is the youngest of five sisters. She was born in Zimbabwe and lived in South Africa until an acute case of itchy feet brought her to London in her mid-20s. As an editor for a customer publishing agency, Sophie developed her fiction-writing skills describing holidays to places she'd never visited. In 2011, she decided to disregard all the good advice given to aspiring novelists and attempt to write full-time. After one false start, It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister's Boyfriend (Wouldn't It?) seemed to write itself. Her second, third and fourth novels followed, and a fifth is due for release in Spring 2017. Sophie also writes for magazines and online about food, fashion and running. She lives in south-east London with her amazing partner Hopi and Purrs, their adorable little cat. 

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SophieRanald/

Twitter: @sophieranald

Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7233995.Sophie_Ranald

Website: https://www.sophieranald.com

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Book Revievw - You Can't Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) by Sophie Ranald

Amazon UK

Title: You Can't Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?)

Author: Sophie Ranald

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Lawsome Books

Publication Date: 14th August 2015

Rating: 4 Stars

Thirteen years ago, Laura thought her life was over. Now, she’s nailed being a grown-up. Married to the gorgeous Jonathan, she has two wonderful (if high-maintenance) children and a free pass into the school-gate elite. So what if once in a blue moon she still daydreams about Felix, the man who broke her heart? After all, living well is the best revenge. 

But then an unexpected encounter turns everything upside down. How can Laura risk throwing away everything she has for a dream of the past? She can’t be falling in love with Felix all over again... can she? 

I'm not sure why but I had been putting off reading this book for months, and I am of course now kicking myself, as its a really good book. Before starting this story, I had been having concentration issues with a few of the books I had been reading, so was wondering if it was me or them, but I had no such problems with this book. 

It is written in a witty and easy to read style, that draws you straight in. It focuses on one main character, Laura, who is perhaps suffering from a marital blip. She is married, has two children and they have just moved house. The first chapter with them moving house, will produce feelings in you, that you will recognise, when you are not precisely sure where your young child's comforter toy has gone. 

From there we then have a fabulous scene at the book club with all the new school mothers that Laura is hoping to befriend, and I loved seeing the competitive parenting at force. Laura's children of course are more of the normal run of the mill sort of children, than the ones these mothers have given birth to themselves, who are of course all young genius (es). 

Laura then meets a neighbour slightly more on her wavelength, and starts to settle in, and then they go to a theatrical experience, and Laura meets a blast from the past... an ex boyfriend to be precise. 

From then on we learn the story of Laura and the ex, and at the same time , we can see there may still be something between them. Of course he is an ex for a very good reason, so whether considering giving into your perhaps deepest hidden thoughts is a good thing, is another question, and one Laura has to deal with.

I found myself completely immersed in this story, and really enjoying every second of it. The characters struck a chord with me, and I found myself also enjoying the flashbacks to when Laura met the ex initially, and the exact circumstances her life changed all those years ago. 

This may have been my first Sophie Ranald book, but its definitely not my last, not least because I have the others on my kindle somewhere already, waiting for me. If this is a good example of her work, then I know I have just found another author to read regularly. 

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Lawsome Books for this review copy. This is my honest opinion.