This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Victoria Sutton
Ellie Cohen seems like she has it all – lovely friends, a close-knit family and a successful career at a London art gallery. Okay, so she has a penchant for ‘fixer-uppers’ and her dad is an ageing rock-star who has never even acknowledged her existence. Still, her life has more or less been running according to plan until her latest vengeful ex-boyfriend, who she couldn’t ‘fix’ after all, sells the story of her secret father to the papers and her world begins to fall apart…
Ellie has always tried to be the nicest person she can be, but when she is revealed in the press as the secret love child of Billy Kay, the picture painted of her is not so flattering. Thanks to the lies spouted by her ex, Richey ‘Velvet Cohen’ is more sex crazed vixen than hard-working gallery professional and all the tabloids want a piece of her. With her home and that of her mother crawling with journalists and her boss threatening to sack her, Ellie has nowhere to go and absolutely no idea how she is going to fix things.
In steps David Gold, high-flying lawyer to her father, who is tasked with ‘managing’ the situation. His career is everything to him and he does his best to always be professional although Ellie does challenge this. David and Ellie have met previously and at that meeting sparks flew between them, but now he knows who she really is, can he risk everything he has ever worked towards for a girl he has only just met?
I must admit, I struggled to get into this novel and felt it only really took off at the half way point. After that, I was keen to see how the love story would develop and I especially enjoyed the chapters set in Paris. I liked Ellie and I admired her pride and tenacity. I struggled with David Gold as the hero though. I felt he was meant to be a moody Mark Darcy type, but I didn’t fall for him and I struggled to understand why Ellie did. I was more taken with Ellie’s relationships with her mother, grandparents and friends, which I found to be more believable.After a slow start It Felt Like a Kiss grew on me and I needed to know how things turned out for Ellie and her family. The many twists and turns of plot kept me reading and guessing right up until the end as to what the final outcome might be. A sweet novel with a focus on family relationships and forbidden loves, It Felt Like a Kiss was an overall enjoyable read for a rainy spring weekend.
7/10