This is the third book in the Annie Valentine series and the first book I've read by Carmen Reid. The cover is lush and gives all the promise of a fun, warm, summer read. In a small way, it does accomplish this. It's light and easy to read, has a few funny moments and talks a lot about clothes and fashion. But for me it lacked something. There was no sparkle, no laugh-out-loud moments.

I couldn't really connect with Annie, she's in the same age bracket as me, being thirty...*cough*, but with two children I just couldn't identify with her. Although I appreciate that Annie was trying to be a warm, friendly and compassionate person, especially to the women she was dressing for the TV show, but unfortunately came across as fake and patronising, and to constantly end sentences with "babes" and "my darlin" soon became annoying rather than endearing. I also thought that Annie's dialogue put her in her forties rather than her thirties, and when I found out her age I was quite surprised.

The story with Annie's friend Svetlana, and her long lost daughter, felt as though it had been added due to the lack of story for Annie. It didn't make any sense for it to be there and, in my view, didn't tie in very well with the rest of the book. Svetlana's accent was also incredibly annoying and didn't come across as realistic (in fact, Dracula came to mind more than once).

There were some moving moments between Annie and her family and the occasional funny moment between Annie and her boyfriend Ed, which I enjoyed reading. I liked the irony as Ed, broody for a baby of his own, buys a tiny lapdog to replace the fact he doesn't have one. The best character for me, by far though, was Annie's gay friend Connor. He was funny and witty and totally camp. It was such a shame he wasn't in the story more, he would have been a hoot!

Verdict:

This book can stand alone and, in my opinion, the two books preceding it don't have to be read to understand what's going on. With that being said, maybe if I had read the other books I would have grown to like Annie's character. However, I don't think it would have helped me enjoy this book more than I did. ( )