An Autumn Crush by Milly Johnson

3 Star

After a bruising divorce, headstrong Juliet Miller invests in a flat and advertises for a flatmate, little believing that in her mid-thirties she'll find anyone suitable. But along comes self-employed copywriter Floz, raw from her own relationship split, and the two woman hit it off. When Juliet's twin brother Guy meets Floz, he is overcome with a massive crush. But being a shy, gentle giant, he communicates so clumsily with her as to give her the opposite impression.

Guy's best friend Steve has always had a secret, unrequited crush on Juliet. After a night of too much wine, Steve and Juliet end up in bed, after moaning about the lack of sex in their lives. Convinced that Juliet doesn't feel the same way, Steve agrees to a 'just-sex' relationship, until they can both hook their dream partners. Just when Guy has finally plucked up the courage to tell Floz how he feels, he finds she has rekindled an old romance. Floz has never had much love in her life and is obviously thirsty for affection. She loves the whole Miller family, from Juliet and Guy's warm, loving parents, to their ancient one-eyed black cat. But can Guy turn Floz's affection for his family into something more - into love for him?

Then Juliet makes a series of discoveries which will turn the lives of all four friends upside-down and turns that Autumn into a season where love can be harvested.

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Kathryn - 3 Star

Milly Johnson is a favourite author of mine (and Lydia’s too) and we were thrilled that she had this new novel out so quickly after her last.  She’s one of those authors that submerses you in her characters and forces you to gobble up the whole story as quickly as you can read it. 

While I have to admit that the storyline was a bit predictable (there was no doubt from chapter one who would end up with who) it’s the warmth of the people in them that makes her novels so enchanting.  In this particular story I found roommate Floz to hold the most interest and indeed her path to love and happiness is the most intriguing by far.  I would have liked to have known a little more about her troubles a bit earlier on in some cases but as I don’t want to give away any details I’ll leave it at that…

Juliet is loveable and she’s an open book so you’re never confused about her intent.  However, once I was approaching the end I realised that I would have liked to have known more about her ex-husband.  The contrast between her first marriage and the man she ends up with would have given a bit more depth to Juliet and while we find out a lot about her from her family it just seemed to me that we weren’t given enough about her ex.

Where Juliet is open her twin brother Guy (completely besotted with Floz) is closed, moody and a bit shy and I can see how this was important to the plot but he also drove me a bit batty with his awkwardness which I found made the story drag a little.

An Autumn Crush is fun and though I enjoyed the novel I still think Johnson’s A Spring Affair is my favourite!

Thank you to Simon and Schuster UK, for our review copy!

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