London Belongs to Us

by Sarra Manning

'Fast and funny and happy-making' Lisa Williamson, author of THE ART OF BEING NORMAL

Twelve hours, two boys, one girl . . . and a whole lot of hairspray.

Seventeen-year-old Sunny's always been a little bit of a pushover. But when she's sent a picture of her boyfriend kissing another girl, she knows she's got to act. What follows is a mad, twelve-hour dash around London - starting at 8pm in Crystal Palace (so far away from civilisation you can't even get the Tube there) then sweeping through Camden, Shoreditch, Soho, Kensington, Notting Hill . . . and ending up at 8am in Alexandra Palace.

Along the way Sunny meets a whole host of characters she never dreamed she'd have anything in common with - least of all the devilishly handsome (and somewhat vain) French 'twins' (they're really cousins) Jean Luc and Vic. But as this love-letter to London shows, a city is only a sum of its parts, and really it's the people living there who make up its life and soul. And, as Sunny discovers, everyone - from friends, apparent-enemies, famous bands and even rickshaw drivers - is willing to help a girl on a mission to get her romantic retribution.

A fast-paced, darkly funny love letter to London, boys with big hair and the joys of staying up all night.

• ISBN10: 1471404617
• ISBN13: 9781471404610
• Publish Date: 2 June 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Hot Key Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 272
• Language: English

Reviews

[Joséphine]

Intial thoughts: This was fun. Should've laid out a map beside me and traced the night though. The setting in this books is nearly as important as the story and the characters themselves. This becomes clear right from the beginning as each chapter introduces the place in which the following actions unfold. for someone who lives in or has been to London, there's a lot of sentimental value that such a reader might attach to the book. I'm sure I would've felt that if London Belongs to Us had been set in a different city.

In any case, books that are set in a time span of less than 24 hours or even just over the course of one night tend to offer a lot of light entertainment for me. London Belongs to Us didn't disappoint on that front. Also, the inclusion of French phases here and there, courtesy of the French cousins feared in the book showed me that I can still understand the basics.

I'm feeling rather inspired to revise my French and possible pursue lessons at the B3 niveau. I'll just need to look to London Belongs to Us to keep me on track. Ironic, I know since one of them Jean-Luc, needed to speak more English and less French. But what can I say? Fictional characters sometimes leave quite an impact ;)