Sealed With A Kiss

by Rachael Lucas

[Leah]

When I saw Sealed By A Kiss on Netgalley, I thought it sounded wonderful! I know Rachael had self-published it a while ago, but being a bit of a cover-snob, I found the cover put me off a little bit. It’s cute, don’t get me wrong, but I just didn’t feel like buying it, I don’t know why. So when I saw it with its lovely new cover, I was quite intrigued (yes, a pretty cover always sucks me in. What can I say? I LOVE a pretty cover and the new cover is lovely!). I know it’s generally been a very positively received book so I was quite excited to give it a read and there are definitely bits of the novel that stand out.

For the most part, Sealed By A Kiss is your standard Chick Lit novel – you have the unlikely but warm heroine (Kate), the “Lord of the Manor” type, who is an actual Lord of the Manor, and is even grumpy to boot (Roderick), the evil ex-girlfriend (Fiona) and the obligatory dance as to whether or not a) Roderick likes Kate and vice-versa and whether Roderick and Fiona are going to get back together and c) Fiona’s spitefulness towards Kate out of jealousy and that’s all fine, Chick Lit must tick some boxes, but if you’ve read it once, you’ve read it lots of times and that sort of let the novel down a little bit for me, especially as I found Kate to be a bit naive at certain points of the novel.

What did make this novel though was the setting! I DREAM of going and living on an island (what do you mean I DO live on an island? Well, I do, but I want to go and live on a QUIET island, not Tenerife, which is not quiet.) and although Auchenmor doesn’t exactly sound like my cup of tea – too many nosey parkers, and too small an island, everyone would know my business (or lack of business), it was a delightful setting for a novel! Perfect! It’s hidden away, with not too many people, it’s remote (only three ferries a day) and lends a cosy feel to the novel, especially when you add seals into the mix! I’ll be honest, I didn’t know you got seals in England; yes, stupid of me, I bet, and it was such an unexpected addition, it was super lovely! That was by far the best part for me, and I just wanted to hop on a plane and then a boat to go and visit, perhaps spend Hogmany there…

Sealed With A Kiss was a very sweet novel. I loved the setting, I loved the seals and Willow, the puppy, I enjoyed all the fringe characters – they’re the type that can really make a novel, with their warmth and enthusiasm to welcome someone knew, as they welcomed Kate, and I very much enjoyed reading the novel. Sure, there were a few cliches here and there, but I can see why this is such a popular novel, I just felt it needed a tad more ‘oomph’ to set it apart from many other Chick Lit novels. I hear Rachael is working on a sequel, so I will definitely be checking it out, especially if it’s a direct sequel that will take us back to Aucehmor and the seals, and Kate and Roderick, let’s see, shall we?