A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger

by Lucy Robinson

[Leah]

Last year, I read and enjoyed The Greatest Love Story of All Time by Lucy Robinson. I read it when I was in England last March and it blew me away. I adored it, so when I heard about Lucy’s new book A Passionate Love Affair With A Total Stranger (which is possibly a better title that The Greatest Love Story of All Time – whoever comes up with the titles should applaud themselves because they’re AWESOME titles) I was practically giddy with excitement. Lucy has a very distinct voice, and is one of the brightest new Chick Lit stars around. When my copy arrived, I was overjoyed, and couldn’t wait to read it. And lemme tell you, it is just as good as The Greatest Love Story of All Time. In fact, it’s better.

Charley Lambert has the perfect life – a job she adores and devotes all of her time to, her own flat that she shares with Sam, and she’s finally managed to snag her boss, John, until it all goes disastrously wrong when, at a picnic, Charley falls over and breaks her leg in three places and learns, when she wakes up in hospital, that she hasn’t managed to snag her boss, in fact he’s just about to marry someone else. After being told she’s not allowed to work for a few months, Charley fears she will go mental. So after reading an article online about a man who writes emails for clients in a bid to snare them internet dates, Charley decides that’s what she do. Until she meets William. And falls in love with him.

I LOVED A Passionate Love Affair With a Total Stranger. Robinson did EVERYTHING I wanted her to do with the novel, and I just lapped it up like an excited puppy. When I heard about Charley I was a bit worried because she sounded like a really cold fish, but she’s actually not. Yes, she has a business front and perhaps doesn’t have many real-world interests or participate in any unorganised parties or anything, but I never found her cold or disinterested. You can’t not love someone who calls themself a Scottish Amazon. Because that’s just ace. That, right there, tells you all you need to know about Charley Lambert. She is ACE. I want her to be my friend.

Most of all, though, I loved William. I loved the whole William thing. The BANTER between Charley and William was something else entirely. It is quite something when a writer can make sparks fly OVER EMAIL. And Lucy Robinson did it. She really SHOULD be a writer for those hopeless at emailing because, man, the amount of marriages there would be. There wouldn’t be a single person left in the world. I guessed the plot twist, it isn’t obvious, but I knew how I wanted it to pan out and it did pan out that way and that just made me love the book even more because it was like Lucy was in my head. It blew my brains, actually, reading those few pages. It was only trumped by the last five pages which made me feel like a giddy teenager. I was literally smiling at the book as I finished it.

I truly can’t speak highly enough of A Passionate Love Affair With A Total Stranger. It was everything I wanted in a book. Charley was awesome, but also, with the friends around her particularly Sam (oh, Sam!), and Hailey, and her sisters Katy and Ness, and even her parents, it was just a really brilliant cast of characters. Even the ghastly Margot added to the novel. I loved the novel more than Lucy Robinson’s first one, and I LOVED that one, as well. Robinson actually reminds me of Gemma Burgess, an author who I worship the socks off, they both write novels that twenty-somethings like me can relate to, with heroines who aren’t afraid to speak their mind. They both know how to write books that kick bum. It made me laugh, it made me happy, it made me sad at points, and it was an all-round fabulous book. Robinson is a Chick Lit star, there is no doubt about that, and I can’t wait for the next one.