Wednesday, April 28, 2010

A Summer Fling by Milly Johnson

5 Star

A Summer Fling follows five different women that work together and we watch their friendship slowly evolve as their individual lives become more complicated.  Anna has been left in pieces after her fiancé left her at 39, while Dawn, aged 33, is planning her own wedding to a man not worthy of her affection.  Raychel, aged 28, seems the happiest, but has dark secrets and Grace, in her 50’s, is trapped in a loveless marriage.  These women worked together for years yet remained distant until their new manager, Christie, takes over and coaxes them all into coming out of their shells. 



Lydia - 5 Star

I don’t think there will be anything Milly Johnson writes that I don’t enjoy. All of her novels are lovely and unique, even though they may share similar themes, and they all find a place in my heart. This one was no different.

I did find the beginning to this novel a tad slow and didn’t fully get immersed into the story right away, but seeing as how the story is told from 5 women’s perspectives, it only makes sense that it would take some time to get to know each character. Once I did though, I got sucked into the story and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen with these women. 

A Summer Fling was a great chick lit novel centering around friendship and encompassing stories of love, finding it in strange places, learning to let go of toxic relationships and finding happiness.  Milly Johnson covers such an array of topics and in typical fashion for her, some of the stories she spins aren’t chock full of roses.  There are heavy topics here and I love this about her work. Her heroines aren’t full of sunshine all the time and have real issues, instead of which pair of shoes to buy, which much more realistic than some of the other chick lit out there. I find this makes her characters much more relatable and multi dimensional and keeps me reading as fast as I can devour the pages. I also really like the overlap of characters in her novels – but don’t worry if you haven’t read her other books. I don’t think it would take away from the story.

Pick up a Milly Johnson book today!  You won’t be disappointed!


Kathryn - 5 Star

Another winner for Milly Johnson!  She’s definitely my new favourite chick lit author and A Summer Fling made me very happy once again.

This chick lit tale follows five women from different stages of life-I really liked this as a concept- I focused on it a lot as I read the book because it struck me as unique. Four women have worked together for a while but only become friends when they are given a new female boss who makes it her first mission to bring her team together.  Reminded me of my own co-workers and made me smile.  It was nice to read a novel reinforcing that women do not need to bring each other down and be support for each other even with decades between their ages.

Milly Johnson makes a point of including a storyline where a woman is struggling with serious domestic issues- this one suddenly popped up for me out of nowhere and was really intense. That particular thread was very subtly written until you finally realized what was going on. I also always appreciate the way that her characters have family and friends that are well painted, serve a purpose and are given a conclusion.  I like that she makes me questions things while it still being an easy read- always a nice thing!  I also always find a few things about her novels that make me laugh- this one includes a bizarre vampire-like fashion designer and a horror of an ex-boss… I was so engrossed in this story that missed a link with a previous Milly Johnson character- must be a good book!


Thank you to Simon and Schuster UK, for our review copy! All opinions are our own.

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