Bricking It

by Nick Spalding

When siblings Dan and Hayley Daley inherit their late grandmother’s derelict Victorian farmhouse, it seems like a dream come true. All they have to do is fix the place up and sell it for a tidy profit!

Except—as anyone who has renovated an old house knows—things are never that easy.

The walls are rapidly crumbling around them, the architect is a certified lunatic, the budget is spiraling…and then there’s the disturbingly intelligent cow to worry about.

On top of all this, the renovation is being featured on a daytime reality TV show, and as soon as Great Locations presenter Gerard O’Keefe catches sight of Hayley’s first-floor balcony, he’s determined to woo her out of her ban on romance, whether she wants him to or not.

Will Dan and Hayley survive and sell up? Or will the whole thing collapse on them like a ton of bricks?

From bestselling author Nick Spalding comes a hilarious tale of life, love and dodgy plumbing.

• ISBN10: 1503948420
• ISBN13: 9781503948426
• Publish Date: 1 December 2015
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Amazon Publishing
• Imprint: Lake Union Publishing
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

****I won this book in a GoodReads giveaway, but this has in no way affected my review or rating****

This was such a good read. I loved Nick's first "Love" book, Love From Both Sides, it literally made me snort with laughter when I read it a few years ago, and I've got all the other Love books to catch up on at some point, Nick's one of those authors that always makes you laugh, and I knew Bricking It would be another good one, especially since everyone has seen the movie The Money Pit right? I expected the book to be a bit like that, but thankfully the house Hayley and Dan end up renovating is nowhere near as bad, and there's no Tom Hanks in sight.

What Bricking It DOES have, however, is a fabulous cast of characters - not only Hayley and Dan, but the builders, the architect, the crew of the TV show the house ends up featured in and they make for a memorable house renovation. I love characters who jump off the pages and they certainly do that! By far my favourite character though was Pat The Cow. I love when authors put dogs in books, it's cute. BUT A COW? You must be having a laugh, but Pat The Cow quickly became a part of the furniture and it wasn't unusual in the slightest to find her in the house. Or talking. And just waiting for someone to pat her. She's the most docile cow I've ever met, heck she's the ONLY cow I've ever met and I couldn't wish for better.

I also loved that Nick mentions his previous novel - Dan has a very embarrassing incident including an attic, a box, and a very bad need for the loo and there's a reference to Hayley having read a novel previously where a character ends up with violent food poisoning and defecating somewhere not too pleasant (and in front of his date, if I remember correctly) and of course that was a very famous scene in Love From Both Sides. That amused me greatly. Way to break the fourth wall, Nick.

Renovating a house is not a fun job, but Dan and Hayley did it with a lot of grace, some help from some fantastic characters and the memorable and unforgettable Pat The Cow. Bricking It was such a fun, pleasurable read. I really enjoyed it.