Book Review: The Summer I Met You by Victoria Walters

Book Review: The Summer I Met You by Victoria Walters

Thursday, 14 July 2016

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About a month and a half back, I received review copies (yes, two!!) of The Second Love of My Life by Victoria Walters. I reviewed that one here but spoiler alert: I absolutely loved it. I got in touch with the lovely Victoria straight after I finished regarding her short story and the likelihood of it being published as a paperback. I’m a bit of a paperback lover and I’d much sooner read an actual physical book than an e-book, but unfortunately she informed me that kindle was the best I was going to get. I decided to like it or lump it and downloaded it straight away (it was a bargain at 99p!) and man, am I glad that I did.

I’ve had a crappy few months, with the final stresses of university exams falling down on me like a ton of bricks. I wanted a relaxing, easy and enjoyable read to sit down with after a day in the library and The Second Love of My Life was definitely that. I started The Summer I Met You, Victoria’s short story, just as my exams had finished and I was still in that wind-down phase. It was exactly what I needed.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I finished it in about an hour. Granted, it is a very short one, around 60 pages. The story follows the characters introduced to us in The Second Love of My Life and it was really nice to get to know these characters even further. Except, in this one, the central focus was on Emma and John, as opposed to Rose. I loved reading about their love story and I love that this one is a little prequel to a book which I already loved so much. There’s not much I can say about 60 odd pages, but I wanted to get this little review out there and further plug The Second Love of My Life as I honestly have such an incredible love for this book. I don’t think it really matters which order you read them in as you get to know the characters independently of each other, and there aren’t really spoilers in either of them!

You can get copies of both of these on amazon! At the moment, I’m pretty sure you can snatch them up for 99p each! If you take ONE piece of advice from any of my reviews, then please take this one and support an author who honestly deserves the recognition for her beautiful writing!

Book Review: The Second Love of My Life by Victoria Walters*

Book Review: The Second Love of My Life by Victoria Walters*

Thursday, 2 June 2016

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Contemporary fiction is one of those genres that gets you through a long and sad day and gives you the pick me up that you so desperately need. When a copy of The Second Love of My Life by Victoria Walters fell through my letterbox, courtesy of the lovely team at Headline books, I was having one of those days. However, other commitments stopped me from launching myself straight into the book and I found myself sticking it on the top of my ever growing to-read pile. I picked it back up last week and delved right into it. I fell in love with Victoria Walters there and then and cannot wait to read The Summer I Met You, a book which tells the story of the other Talting couple, Emma and John.

This particular tale tells the story of Rose, a young and recently widowed artist. Her husband, Lucas, unfortunately loses his life in a drunk-driving accident for which he holds no responsibility and Rose is struggling to cope with the repercussions of his death. Her art ultimately suffers and she finds it difficult to find her muse. There is nothing she, nor her friends Emma and John, can do about her despair. When a young lawyer, Robert, comes to Cornwall to specifically buy from her art portfolio and then decides to remain in Talting for the entire summer, it seems that things may well be changing for Rose and the possibility of love is on the horizon.

I absolutely ADORED this book. I’m a sucker for a good romance novel and everything about this was beautifully done. Walters handled both grief and new romance flawlessly. I particularly loved the line “grief makes you both restless and listless” as I thought that was a pretty good way of describing the emotions and the feelings upon losing someone you love. I found that I loved every single character and how the people of the small town of Talting came together to help Rose (and eventually Emma) through her grief. I absolutely loved Robert, in spite of his flaws, and I loved the way in which he was introduced to the story. I feel like I’m going to be endlessly listing off the things I loved about this book, so I’m going to cut it short here and just saw: buy it.

If you love short, sweet and thoughtful tales of love then this one will be perfect for you. It combines all of those factors, isn’t unbearable in the slightest and doesn’t come off as being sickly-sweet or unnatural. I think this is a pretty impressive feat considering how it could have panned out. I’ll definitely be buying a copy of Victoria’s other book when it’s released in paperback-  I can’t wait to see where the story is going to go!

You can grab your copy of The Second Love of Your Life on amazon here.

Thank you very much to Headline for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

5/5