Acts of Love

I’m going to start with a positive – I LOVED the book cover, it’s a hardback with no dust jacket so the pattern has been applied directly to the book – it’s a beautiful book to look at.

My initial thought as I read the first chapter was that the author was trying a little too hard to impress the reader with her knowledge of words and that perhaps she had whipped out the thesaurus a little too much. That was a rather negative thought to start with… however I see myself as a reasonably well read person and since I had to look up the meaning of four words within the first five pages, I was feeling rather downcast before I’d even finished the first chapter. On a positive, I have learnt some new words that I can whip out but I’m conscious that these words aren’t used often in conversation or in writing so I feel they’re rather lost in this current era.

This book focuses around the love life of a young and extremely talented journalist – Bernadette. There are two players in the running for her heart: Tim; her manager, and Radley; the interviewee. When Tim announces he’s engaged to the sweet natured Elizabeth, Bernadette feels like her world is crashing down but refuses to believe that there isn’t still hope for the two of them. Elizabeth then announces that she’d like Bernadette to be one of her bridesmaids, which Bernadette sees as a perfect opportunity for her to stay close to Tim and make him realise who he truly wants. Not surprisingly another potential candidate for Bernadette’s heart comes on the scene – Elizabeth’s best friend Radley and he happens to be a rather dishy billionaire who Bernadette is interviewing for her magazine … and it just so happens that he gets under Bernadette’s skin right away. I won’t give away any spoilers of who she ends up with but I will say there’s a lot of back and forth emotions and as soon as you think she’s settled, it all kicks off again.

I thought there were times within the book that Riley showed a creative and unique style for example, the hen and stag party in Vegas was particularly fun to read as they got up to some unusual activities and it strayed away from the textbook style. But unfortunately there wasn’t enough of these moments within the book and I’m inclined to class this book as a ‘tide over’ book; i.e. it’s a good book to fill the gap in-between two great books, but it will never make it into my top ten.

If you’re a chick lit lover and you’re after a book that adds a rather classical vocabulary to the standard romantic plot – then without a doubt you’ll love this, but for me – it was a resounding ‘no’.

Until next time, Chloé x