Heaven Sent

by Christina Jones

[Leah]

Clemmie has a problem – she’s had almost as many jobs as she’s had birthdays and her lovelife is on the critical list.But with the big 3-0 looming she’s determined to transform herself from unemployed singleton to loved-up success.

Trouble is Clemmie’s dream job would be working for local entrepreneur Guy Devlin, owner of the famous pyrotechnics company, The Gunpowder Plot.

He’d also be high on her list of candidates for significant other too. But Guy has a whole veritable cargo hold of baggage – avaricious ex-wife, a host of monster ex-step children.

He’s not even looking for an assistant. And if he was a quirky amateur firework maker with a penchant for cream cakes and big explosions wouldn’t be high on his list.

Having enjoyed Christina Jones’ first novels – Going The Distance, Stealing The Show, Running The Risk and Tickled Pink, I was worried that her change of genre – from regular chick-lit to magical romantic comedies – wasn’t the kind of chick-lit I enjoyed so it’s taken me ages to read one of her newer novels. However I had no reason to worry – Heaven Sent was fantastic and just as good as Christina’s earlier novels.

It’s a relatively short novel, 253 pages, but it was a brilliant, fast read. I absolutely loved the firework aspect to the novel as I love fireworks. As is usual with Christina’s novels we caught up with all her characters from her previous novels: Drew & Maddy, Ellis & Lola, Flynn & Posy and all of the characters from Christina’s magical novels. I love it when authors bring us up-to-date with their old characters. It’s a nice touch and something authors do rarely.

I loved Clemmie as the main character, she was boho, she was fun and she was a very likeable character. I loved YaYa and the whole drag-queen aspect of the book, Christina always gives us quirky characters and YaYa was definitely quirky. Guy was brilliant and I loved the irony of him being called Guy and him working at/owning The Gunpowder Plot. The relationship/friendships between Guy, YaYa and Clemmie were really believeable and well written – again, something Christina is good at doing, developing the friendships and relationships.

Helen was our villain of the story and drove me insane. As always she was your typical villain: spiteful, two-faced and trying to cause trouble.

I enjoyed the plot of the story too: Clemmie and Guy trying to figure out a mysterious formula for the best firework ever which may or may not have magic powers. It was a great addition to the firework plot and it was great wondering if they would figure it all out.

Sure the ending is typical chick-lit and you know it’s coming a mile off but as I said before, Christina develops the relationships and friendships so much that you want it to end that way. And you know what, I don’t mind typical endings. If I wanted unhappy endings I would read something else, something miserable.

I loved the magical element, it’s great for authors to steer away from the whole formulaic chick-lit and try something new, something different. It’s something you can read and escape to and I love it. I’ll definitely have to get all of Christina’s magical books as they are fab.

I still enjoy Christina’s older novels but it’s good to know she can change her genre slightly and still have a great book on her hands!

Rating: 5/5