Can't Buy Me Love

JANE LOVERING

Synopsis from Goodreads: Is it all too good to be true?

When Willow runs into her old university crush, Luke, she’s a new woman with a new look – not to mention a little bit more cash after a rather substantial inheritance. Could she be lucky enough to score a fortune and her dream man at the same time?

Then Willow meets Cal; a computer geek with a slightly odd sense of humour. They get on like a house on fire — although she soon realises that there is far more to her unassuming new friend than meets the eye …

But money doesn’t always bring happiness, and Willow finds herself struggling to know who to trust. Are the new people in her life there because they care – or is there another reason?

Previously released in the US as Reversing Over Liberace. Revised and edited by Choc Lit June 2016.

Stats for my copy: Kindle edition, Choc Lit, 2016.

How acquired: NetGalley.

First Lines: 'My grandfather's left me his nose. It's in a matchbox.'

My thoughts:  Willow and her mates, Jazz and Katie, are hanging out in their local pub one night, when they run into Luke, an old college classmate. In college Willow had a huge crush on Luke, but he never seemed to notice her existence at all. So she's pretty thrown when he's now happy to see her and promptly asks her out. Willow is a fun, self-deprecating narrator. She has lots of siblings who wander in and out of her story, all of whom (including her) seem to be at a stage in life where they are floundering slightly. At first I thought Jazz was going to be the cliche gay best friend that was all the rage for awhile, so I was relieved when that wasn't the case. Instead she has a gay brother, but he was fairly normal and not at all cliche. And then he introduces her to Cal, who she gets to know, before discovering she didn't really know him at all. He was one of my favorite characters. She often refers to him as being weird, but he was weird in a good way.

Willow, despite being in her early thirties, was a little naive in the beginning, letting Luke's attention sweep her off her feet. The plot was a little transparent, although if I hadn't read the synopsis it might've taken me longer to become suspicious. And Willow of course did not read the synopsis, so maybe I should expect it to take her longer to realize something wasn't quite right. There was a nice little, not exactly a plot twist but more a veering of the storyline that I did not see coming, which, while I'm not sure it was completely realistic it was quite satisfying.

Ms. Lovering definitely writes quirky stories. Sometimes too much quirk can come off as campy or over the top, but Ms. Lovering infuses her stories with warmth and humor and characters you'd like to be friends with. A fun read with some amusing banter and wonderful characters. 

How I Wonder What You Are

JANE LOVERING

Synopsis from Goodreads: “Maybe he wasn’t here because of the lights – maybe they were here because of him …”

It’s been over eighteen months since Molly Gilchrist has had a man (as her best friend, Caro, is so fond of reminding her) so when she as good as stumbles upon one, lying comatose, on the moors one bitterly cold morning, it seems like the Universe is having a laugh at her expense.

But Phinn Baxter (that’s Doctor Phinneas Baxter) is no drunken layabout, as Molly is soon to discover; with a PhD in astrophysics and a tortured past that is a match for Molly’s own disastrous love life.

Finding mysterious men on the moors isn’t the weirdest thing Molly has to contend with, however. There’s also those strange lights she keeps seeing in the sky. The ones she’s only started seeing since meeting Phinn …

Stats for my copy: Kindle, Choc Lit Limited, 2014

How acquired: Netgalley

First line (skipping the prologue): The man lay naked, unconscious and , inevitably I suppose given the temperature, slightly blue.

My thoughts: Molly and Phinn are two lost souls, closed up inside themselves and holding the world at bay. Molly writes for a magazine and came to this remote little village after a bad breakup. She doesn't talk about her ex, nor will she talk about her mother and why she's so angry with her that she avoids her calls or hangs up as soon as she answers the phone. Her life consists of her little cottage, her friend (and landlady) across the street, Caro, and a horse named Stan who is a character in his own right. When she sees mysterious colorful lights flitting across the sky, she's entranced and curious about them, although nobody else in the village appears to have seen them.

One day while out riding Stan, Molly comes across a naked unconscious man lying on the ground. And that's how she meets Phinn. He's a physicist, quite well known in the science community. A lanky, awkward, bespectacled man who's taken up residence in an abandoned, neglected, moldy/mildewey house across the village. (Actually I don't remember if the author described him as “lanky” but in my head he is.) When Phinn sees mysterious colorful lights flitting across the sky, he's entranced and curious about them, although his friend Link never sees them, even when he's walking just a few yards behind Phinn.

While Molly is recovering from her bad breakup, Phinn wears the remnants of his marriage like a cloak. It covers him all around, keeping his memories close and allowing his anxiety and low self-esteem to leak out through the worn fabric. His wife convinced him that he's a wimp, that he's not a real man, that no real woman would want him.

Right from the beginning I was captivated by the narration, by the author's voice and her turn of phrase. It was flowing, almost lyrical at times. An example:

“Phinn was about twenty yards behind with the tent bag slung across his shoulders and the last rays of the sun tinting his face and hair before it sank behind the hump of moorland to the west. It caught his glasses and blocked out his eyes, replacing them with reflections of the scenery, making him look as though he'd been possessed by the spirit of the moors.”

And another:

“The anger weighted his words, made them drop and bend the atmosphere around them.”

For the most part I enjoyed the story, enjoyed getting to know Phinn and Molly, as well as Stan the horse. I expected those mysterious lights to play into the plot more than they did, but the plot moved forward steadily (albeit a little slowly) despite the lights not being more involved. However, as much I hate to say it, I did at times agree with Phinn that he was being a wimp, and kept wanting him to “man up” and grow a pair. And when he finally did, I was initially disappointed at the way he went about it. But everything was resolved nicely in the end and overall it was a sweet little story.

Note: It's my understanding this is the fourth book in a series, The Yorkshire Romances, but each book can be read as a stand alone.