This West London Life

The Ivies by Alexa Donne | YA | Audible | I’d best describe this as Mean Girls on steroids with a side helping of Nancy Drew sleuthing. 🙂 This novel is a boarding school thriller about a group of prep school elites who would kill to get into the college of their dreams …. literally. I was unhappy with how the ending dealt with one of the miscreants.

Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan | Kindle | This is both a warm hug of a book and instantly forgettable, in my opinion. The perfect beach read.

You Belong With Me by Mhairi McFarlane | paperback | This is the sequel to McFarlane’s 4th book, Who’s That Girl? but could be read as a stand-alone. The story opens where WTG? ends and we then see Edie and Elliot work through the differences in their lifestyles in order to be together. I want to say that I loved it, having read it quickly, but I can’t. I did enjoy it, but I feel I need to re-read it in order to do it full justice.

The Last Love Note by Emma Grey | Audible and then paperback | I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this is quite possibly the best book I’ve ever read. Within hours of finishing this, I had found Emma Grey on Instagram and sent her a DM, full-on fan girl. 🙂 (To which, Emma graciously replied.)

I do feel that having said that, I should point out that it’s not always an easy read/listen – the story deals with terminal illness, death of a spouse, miscarriage and infertility.

There is a love story that builds slowly throughout the book, but it’s more about two separate yet intertwined love stories involving our heroine, Kate. She’s feeling lost in her roles and when they are stripped away, she struggles finding meaning, purpose and acceptance in what’s left – and ultimately comes to understand that the worst can happen and you can still carry on.