Part 1 (You Had Me at Merlot) (Catch Me If You Cannes, #1)

by Lisa Dickenson

The first part in this hilarious four-part digital romantic comedy, from the author of The Twelve Dates of Christmas - winner of the Novelicious Debut of the Year award.

Elle and Laurie are the last ones standing: they're single, they're not having babies any time soon and their weekends aren't filled with joyful meetings about mortgages. For Elle, this is fine - she likes her independent life, she loves her job, and she has no desire to walk down the aisle anytime soon. But Laurie wants love and she wants it now.

So when Laurie begs Elle to come with her on a singles holiday to a beautiful vineyard in Tuscany, Elle is reluctant. You Had Me at Merlot Holidays promises crisp sunshine, fun and a chance to stir up some sizzling romance. Elle has no intention of swapping her perfectly lovely life for someone else's idea of her Mr Perfect, but ten days under the Italian sun with her best friend and lashings of wine? How bad could that be?

You Had Me at Merlot is the kind of love story that will have you crying with laughter one moment and nodding your head in agreement the next. Full of sultry summer nights, hilarious moments and plenty of wine, it will warm even the most cynical of hearts and have you believing in the magic of romance (and the power of a decent glass of Merlot).

• ISBN10: 0751557420
• ISBN13: 9780751557428
• Publish Date: 14 July 2014
• Publish Status: Withdrawn
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Sphere
• Edition: Digital original
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 16000
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

I was super excited to be invited to take part in Lisa Dickenson’s blog tour for her new four-part serialised novel You Had Me At Merlot, and I was even more excited to be able to read it all in one go – if you saw my post last week you’ll know how I feel about serialised novels! I tried to read the novel a few weeks ago, but I felt a bit disjointed with the characters, and the writing, so I put it down, but it got to the day before my blog tour and I literally had no choice but to pick it back up again and give it a second go…

This is going to be a relatively short and sweet review – I don’t really have a lot to say, because it’s quite tough to read a book you’re just not feeling, and I just wasn’t feeling You Had Me At Merlot. It’s an entirely capable novel – with a fantastic setting, characters I would normally in any other circumstances love, but something wasn’t clicking for me. It’s hard to explain because I don’t even know why, which is always a shame. Dickenson is a wonderful writer – and she definitely knows where to set her books because Italy sounded bloody delightful (I am falling more and more in love with Italy with each book I read that’s set there) and I thought Bella Notte sounded like the most picturesque setting; I’d move there in a heartbeat.

You Had Me At Merlot is definitely a read for when you’re sitting on your sunloungers, around the pool whilst on holiday. The setting is awesome, I just wished I could have connected to Elle and Laurie more. For me, there seemed to be something missing – especially the ice-cold opening of Part 3 where I thought I’d somehow missed a step and ended up feeling as disoriented and confused as Elle. Something was definitely missing in translation from that scene. I wanted to love the novel! I wanted to devour all four parts and be hungry for more because I adore Lisa on Twitter, she’s so funny and spontaneous and it kills me to not be all HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY over her book. I can only apologise….