Christmas at Tiffany’s is an absolutely wonderful story, and
even though chick-lit isn’t my genre of choice, this book had me
laughing, sighing, and wishing it would never end! No, seriously… I did
not want this story to end!
Blurb…
Three cities. Three seasons. One chance to find the life that fits.
Cassie
settled down too young, marrying her first serious boyfriend. Now, ten
years later, she is betrayed and broken. With her marriage in tatters
and no career or home of her own, she needs to work out where she
belongs in the world and who she really is.
So begins a year-long
trial as Cassie leaves her sheltered life in rural Scotland to stay
with each of her best friends in the most glamorous cities in the world:
New York, Paris and London. Exchanging grouse moor and mousy hair for
low-carb diets and high-end highlights, Cassie tries on each city for
size as she attempts to track down the life she was supposed to have
been leading, and with it, the man who was supposed to love her all
along.
My thoughts…I can’t put my finger on what makes this story so perfect, and I think that’s because
Christmas at Tiffany’s has it all – poignancy, great friends who’ll see you through the rough times without coddling you, romance, passion, and
true
love. Honestly, start to finish I was totally drawn into Cassie’s
world, cheering her on as she left her past in the past to focus on the
future and discover who she was really meant to be.
One of the
very best things about this story is that it spans a full year, each
friend taking Cassie in and giving her the chance to experience life in
ways she’d never otherwise been able to. Because of this, there was no
single
“ah-ha!” moment in Cassie’s journey. Instead, there
were several life defining moments, and I love the way those moments
came to be – each an eye-opening experience, a lesson learned, and
sometimes a heart broken.
Luke, Claude, and Henry… I loved them,
hated them, loved them, hated them… but because they each played a very
important role in Cassie’s… awakening…I wouldn’t change a single thing
about them or their relationships with her. It’s an incredibly romantic
and passionate story, even though there are no explicit sex scenes.
I’ve read a couple of reviews in which people have said that they feel the title,
Christmas at Tiffany’s
is misleading - perhaps because the story unfolds over the course of a
year. I don’t really understand that at all because two of the sweetest,
most romantic scenes take place during Christmas, and at Tiffany’s… and
in my opinion, this story couldn’t have been more aptly titled.
And
I’m going to stop now because truly, there’s really nothing I can say –
no words I can come up with that will capture the emotions I felt while
reading this story, and how happy I am that I did. Being chick-lit this
would have never made it on my radar, and what a horrible loss that
would have been.
To Maria Silva at HarperCollins who sent Christmas at Tiffany’s
and asked me to take a peek, to give it a chance… thank you. Sincerely, thank you!Buy links:AmazonBarnes & Noble Walmart Indiebound iTunes Googlebooks Books-A-Million
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Blurb…
Reading Intrusion… well, at first I wasn’t sure what in the hell I was getting myself into…
…because this story isn’t at all what I was expecting. This is not my first Charlotte Stein book, but it’s definitely turned out to be my favorite. I want to call it a psychological thriller, but that’s not exactly right. A dark, romantic suspense might be more apropos, but I also have to add it’s one sensually erotic, passionate, poignant, and romantic journey. It’s a tale about two people who, for all intents and purposes, should be ruined, but who find a way to protect themselves by hiding behind the carefully constructed walls of their lonely but comfortable lives. Their journey… and that’s what it is, a journey… to finding their way back into the light is one that will stay with me, and in some ways haunt me, for a very long time.
If you enjoy darker stories about the resiliency of the human heart and the undying hope of the human soul...
...then definitely give Intrusion a try. It’s typical Charlotte Stein in that it’s told from the first person (heroine)POV, with a lot of internal dialog – some of which had me laughing out loud at the absurdity of Beth's thoughts, and other times wanting to weep at the harsh reality of them, too. Such an emotional roller-coaster read!
Note: This story can be read as a stand alone. While there's an ongoing theme, a different couple is the focus of the next book.
An ARC was provided by Red/Avon Impulse via Edelweiss. In return I’m giving them an honest review.