Trashy Romance Novel - Jacqueline E. Smith

Whenever I get into a conversation with anyone about books they always ask me what genre of books I enjoy reading. Queue my awkward mumble of 'oh I read a lot of young adult books and um...trashy romance novels...'. I love author Jacqueline E. Smith's Boy Band novels so when I heard she was releasing a novel called Trashy Romance Novel its safe to say I got excited about reading it. It sounded exactly like a book that was going to be my cup of tea!

Trashy Romance Novel tells the story of Delaney. Delaney is quite sweet and innocent so from an outsiders point of view she is pretty much the last person on the planet you'd expect to write a trashy romance novel. Yet she has and now her novel is so popular its being turned into a movie starring some very famous actors. Delaney flies to Scotland with her best friend Gemma to go visit the movie set and watch the all star cast, which includes the rebellious Colin Ward, playboy Benjamin Wyndham and Delaney's celebrity crush Matthew Kent, film the movie. Of course in true trashy romance style, when the normal girl meets the irresistible actor - you know her summer is going to be an interesting one!

As I had such big expectations of this book I was worried that I just wouldn't enjoy it, but I'm very happy to say that I absolutely loved this book. I love the idea of writing a book and then suddenly you find yourself watching your celebrity crush who you pictured when writing it actually playing the character you wrote so for me the storyline truly gripped my attention. If you're like me and read a lot of romance novels and I can guarantee that Trashy Romance Novel won't disappoint. 

The characters were great to read about. Delaney is so down to earth and likable which makes the book that much better to read about. Her best friend Gemma is also one of the greatest things about this book. Delaney is reserved whereas Gemma is outgoing and much more forward of situations. The fact that they're both so different really added to my enjoyment of the book as some moments really made me laugh reading about how they both responded to situations. The love interests in this book are the perfect romance novel characters too. Without spoiling the book, if I had to criticise the book, my only slight issue with it, is that I would've liked to read a little more about Matthew Kent particularly as Delaney liked him so much. However, it really didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book at all so it really isn't an issue.

The book itself is wrote quite unusually. Not only does it tell the story of Delaney's Scottish adventures but it also weaves in chapters of Delaney's book in between. To be honest I'm not usually a fan of novels which switch chapters up like this as I find I get engrossed in one story and it then annoys me when it switches to another but in this particular case I felt it worked well. Delaney watches a lot of her book be filmed so its interesting to actually read segments of the story which she's there watching being filmed. I've certainly worded this in the most confusing of ways but I can assure you it works very well in the novel. 

As you can tell I thought Trashy Romance Novel was fantastic. In my opinion if you love your romance novels you have to make Trashy Romance Novel by Jacqueline E Smith the next novel you buy!

Synopsis -

It all started with a crush. 
How cliché is that? I mean, of all the things to motivate a person to do something, how often does it go back to a silly infatuation? More often than most of us would probably care to admit. 
Of course, this wasn’t an ordinary crush on a cute coworker or a charming friend of a friend I hooked up with at a party. No, I’ve never met the guy who inspired my books. 
But I’m about to. 

Delaney Brooks is the author of The Queen’s Surrogate, the “sinfully satisfactory” romance novel that swept readers around the world off their feet and into the fictional embrace of His Majesty, King Malcolm. 

When her book is adapted into an eight-part miniseries, Delaney and her best friend Gemma fly to Scotland for what promises to be two months of lush green mountains, historic castles, and hot celebrity co-workers, including the gorgeous Matthew Kent, British playboy Benjamin Wyndham, and Hollywood’s hottest reformed rebel, Colin Ward.

Blogtober - Day 31

Happy Halloween!!!!! Or more importantly...happy end of Blogtober 2017!!!!! I can now breathe a deep sigh of relief, it’s all over!

It’s been 31 long days but we’ve made it! I actually achieved Blogtober! I know quite a lot of days I copped out and wrote the biggest pile of rubbish but hey I still posted something and I’ve actually blogged something for an entire 31 days! It’s been nice in a way to do more let’s write what I feel like kind of blogs rather than just doing book reviews. I definitely won’t be stopped my little reviews on books but I didn’t think I’d ever had the confidence to write more personal things so Blogtober has help me achieve that. I now know I can post anything I want on here.

It’s been exhausting, an effort at times but on the other days some days I’ve absolutely loved writing. Honestly I knew from day 1 that deciding to do Blogtober very last minute with no planning at all, would be difficult and boy was I not wrong. I wish I’d planned ahead and had a lot of posts planned in advance so when I was ill / out and forgot to blog / generally not in a writing mood I had something ready to post without feeling pressured to write something. I completely and utterly winged the entire 31 days and somehow I’ve made it to the end - hurrah!

Would I do Blogtober again....? If you asked me a week ago it would’ve been a 100% no, however maybe with a bit of planing I maybe would do it again. I’m definitely having a break off daily blogging for a little while at least!!! 

Blogtober - Day 30

Well somehow I’ve made it to the penultimate day of Blogtober! It is also the day before Halloween! 

I’ve been to Salem in October, pretty much the home of Halloween, and sadly since then Halloween seems a little disappointing. America celebrated Halloween like you see in movies! Massive pumpkin fayres, with racks and racks and racks of pumpkins towered high, houses decorated as much as we decorate for Christmas, people in costumes etc etc. Halloween just seems just more fun over in America, it’s literally like a scene from Hocus Pocus! 

Which leads me on nicely to my own Halloween traditions. I’m British so sadly we don’t really care about Halloween. Ok, the supermarkets may sell pumpkins and various buckets of sweets to give out to potential trick or treaters but generally we don’t make that much of a big deal out of it. As I’ve got older I literally do nothing for Halloween. I just don’t care for it. Plus after being in America for Halloween, ours just isn’t the same anymore. All I do for Halloween now is hope that Hocus Pocus, The Addams Family and Casper is on tv and I’m very happy! Sadly it’s now the night before Halloween and I’ve currently only seen Hocus Pocus this year.

Sadly I don’t have much to say today. I’ve had a long day and I’m feeling exhausted. However, inevitably I won’t be blogging until late tomorrow too so I’m going to take this opportunity to wish anyone who reads this a happy Halloween!!!

dodie - You Tour

Last night I was at Stylus in Leeds seeing dodie on her You tour. You may know dodie better as her YouTube username doddleoddle. I’ve been a fan of dodie for a number of years now but both of her headlining tours sold out incredibly fast so you have to be very lucky to bag yourself a ticket to see her - thankfully this tour I did just that!

I arrived early at the venue but it was quickly apparent that dodies fans are extremely dedicated with the queue going right around the building. Many of the queue looked like they’d been there for a good part of the day too! Definitely need to mention the crowd at this point, as despite the insanely hot temperatures in the venue I don’t think I’ve been in such a nice audience. Instead of pushing straight into your space, people were leaving it free for you whilst you went to grab water and when people went to the bar they were bringing back extra water for people stood near them etc. 

dodie came on stage to the biggest cheers / screams / applaud / chant I think I’ve ever heard at a concert ever. That noise did not falter once throughout the set with the crowd singing a lot louder than you could hear dodie a lot of the time! 

I found her set to be brilliant and she certainly didn’t disappoint. dodie preformed songs from both of her EP’s as well as a couple of songs she hadn’t physically released including fan favourite, She. dodie has a real innocent charm whilst on stage which I think comes across so well. She also manages to connect with the crowd like very few artists do. Many people stood around me were sobbing throughout many of dodie’s songs. Her realism and openness about sexuality and mental health clearly strikes a chord with so much of her audience. 

I had a great time and would see dodie live again tomorrow if I could. My personal favourites from the set were When, 6 / 10, Absolutely Smitten and In The Middle which even saw dodie playing drums! She has such a wonderful stage presence and her songs live (complete with her talented band) come across so beautifully live and I truly don’t think I’ll see dodie in such a small venue again. She’ll be for sure headlining much bigger things in the future. 

Blogtober - Day 28

And the award to worst Blogtober writer goes to....drum roll please....me!!! Yes I know it’s only 5pm but I’ve forgotten to blog and I’m currently waiting to go into concert so once again I’m doing a pathetic arghhh I’ve forgotten to blog post.

Tonight I’m seeing dodie in concert. Her concert tickets sell out in minutes so I’m so thrilled to finally be able to see her live. She’s known on YouTube as doddleoddle and she frequent posts ukulele covers and original songs. I’ve bumped into her randomly in a train station many years ago and I’ve been watching her YouTube videos for the last five or so years but tonight is the first time I’ve actually been able to see her live which I’m very looking forward to. Dodie is actually part of the reason I started learning to play the ukulele as she’s one of the only person that I’ve heard so songs on the ukulele and they sound like actual songs! Except I swiftly realised she makes playing it look insanely easy and when I try it sounds more like plinkerty plink plink. 

Now I’m in the queue waiting to go in and I’m feeling old. I appreciate I’m getting far too old to be watching YouTube videos, it’s definitely one of those things my niece is more into than someone in their mid twenties! That is certainly reflected in the crowd waiting to go in tonight! Despite that I’m very much looking forward to seeing dodie. I love her albums and from what I’ve seen of her performances I’m certainly in for a good evening.

So tomorrow’s blog is likely to be a little write up on tonight’s concert but sadly for today this is all I’ve got. Definitely should’ve planned Blogtober so much better than this! 

Blogtober - Day 27

Day 27 and I’m officially stumped and rapidly running out of ideas so today I thought I’d do a little short post of why I originally started my blog. 

When I was younger I used to write a lot. I watched a ridiculous amount of Gilmore Girls / Sabrina The Teenage Witch so I completely blame those for my interest in writing and my obsession with wanting to go to Harvard - but that’s a whole different blog post! Then as I got older I just didn’t bother anymore. Maybe it’s because I had to write a lot throughout my education but recreational writing / reading went down to a minimum. 

When I graduated university I quickly released I had to make more use of my spare time so began reading a lot more again. My reading a lot more is insane, I’ve always had a quick reading speed and I was reading them faster than I could afford to buy more! So I thought I’d start up my writing again and blog my reviews on books. I figured if anyone read it and bought a book based on my recommendation then job well done. Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to receive many review copies of books which I’m so thankful to have received.  

Around the same time I started this blog my interest in writing also came back. I really credit this down to one of my favourite authors, Giovanna Fletcher. She made a YouTube video on how to write a novel and really it gave me the kick up the backside I needed to start writing my own novel. I know I’ll never get published or anything but it’s so nice to be able to feel like I can write again.

Really though as much as I’m enjoying writing my blog, I know my writing is rubbish and that I’ll never be able to make a career out of it, but at least I’m well aware my writing ability is minimal. However, I enjoy writing and reading once again (more than I have in years) so I’m glad to have my blog in my life at the moment. After Blogtober though it is safe to say I’ll be going back to weekly blogging and not daily...

The Addams Family Musical

It’s been over a month now since I went to see The Addams Family Musical and yet somehow I’m yet to talk about it on my blog, which is unbelievable considering I’ve had the US tour soundtrack cd played on loop since I’ve seen the show. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this addicted to a musical. 

The Addams Family Musical features all your favourite Addams Family members except the big difference now is that it’s set a few years in the future. The Addams are just as kooky as ever apart from perhaps Wednesday Addams who has fallen in love...with a boy from a normal family! The show tells the story of the night that the Addams Family meets Wednesdays boyfriends normal family. 

To be perfect honest I went into the show without looking at the storyline and when the show started I was abit like really? Am I actually seeing a show about Wednesday falling in love? It just didn’t seem very Addams Family to me but I was proved completely wrong! The storyline was perfectly Addams. It didn’t revolve entire around Wednesday either giving each member of the Addams Family clan chance to shine. The catchy songs along with addictive storyline meant the show went unbelievably quickly. I was even practically in tears laughing at some of the parts! 

Whoever did the casting for this musical deserves a promotion. I have never been to see a show where every single person in it was perfect for the role to the extent that I can’t even write about stand out stand out members of the cast. It truly does seem unfair to actually mention people at this pointes the entire cast was unbelievable. However, Cameron Blakely as Gomez, Carrie Hope Fletcher as Wednesday and understudy Scott Paige as Fester were particularly wonderful. Scott Paige in particular deserves that mention as when the tannoy announced Les Dennis wasn’t in the show at the start the audience I was in did do a collective groan, however Scott Paige was a incredible understudy who I think should’ve been cast as Fester anyway! Like I say though the entire cast were absolutely fantastic, from the whole Addams Family, to the Ancesters to the Beineke Family, I cannot express how great they all were. 

Sadly, The Addams Family Musical only has a couple more stops left in the UK. If it is coming near you though and you love the Addams Family films you have to go and see this musical! An all round fantastic cast, catchy songs and a great storyline - what more do you want from the musical!