This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
I love Sarah Duncan's books and having read Kissing Mr Wrong, I wasn't at all surprised that it was shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Award 2011.
Lu Edwards travels light. She's a cartoonist who likes her independence. While most of her friends have moved on to bigger homes, marriages and children, she doesn't even have a pet to hold her back and she likes it that way. She's met a few Mr Not Quite Rights, but is waiting for Mr Perfect to come into her life and when she meets successful, handsome Marcus, she's pretty sure she's finally found him. Unfortunately, Marcus soon tells her that he's leaving to go to America and doesn't know when, or even if, he'll be returning.
Lu's grandmother asks for her help. She's about to go into hospital for surgery and asks Lu to help her trace a man. All she has to help Lu is a photograph and a name. Lu doesn't know where to start, until her best friend, Briony comes up with a solution. She introduces Lu to Nick, a military historian who agrees to help her try and trace the mysterious man from her grandmother's past.
Before long, Lu begins to realise that she's falling in love with Nick, however, unlike Lu, he's not so independent and has two small sons and an ex-wife to consider. Lu can't believe her luck, she's never wanted children and certainly can't see herself bringing up someone elses. She's found the right man, but with the wrong circumstances and then Marcus returns and wants to start up where they left off before his departure to America.
I read this book in one sitting. Not only were there the difficulties between Nick and Lu, but her own deeper problems with her eccentric mother, Pixie and her absent father. Lu adores her grandmother and is desperate to solve the riddle behind the man she's been asked to trace and to discover his own part in her grandmother's life and it's while she's doing this that she learns a lot about herself and her own preconceived ideas.
9/10
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