Fabulous Fridays: Chick Lit

I have been thinking about this post for a while but have been putting it off as I hate, hate, hate the term Chick lit! I think it has far too many derogatory connotations yet it is one of my favourite genres to read. So off I went to get a definition of what Chick Lit is and I found this:

Chick Lit is genre fiction which addresses issues of modern womanhood...

This still isn't great as it still sounds a bit feminist and bra burning to me but I interpret it as books about women! I am a woman and therefore it is likely that I am going to enjoy reading books about other women, I hold my hands up to the fact that I very rarely read books with a male lead character or written by a man. I think this is a subconscious choice, I do have a few male authors who I enjoy but it is mainly books by female authors sitting on my TBR pile.

So sorry for the preamble but here is a list of some of my favourite chick-lit books and inadvertently this list also includes all of my favourite chick-lit authors. These are the writers I go to when I want a great story, likeable characters, a bit of drama and the odd happy ending. These are the authors that I get excited about having a new book out as I just know that I am guaranteed a treat! 

I apologise right now if you don't agree with my definition of Chick Lit but I hope that some of these books might be of interest to you, just click on the title to read my review!

Have a lovely weekend

Dot
xxx 

The Teashop on the Corner by Milly Johnson (Simon & Schuster, 492 pages) Life is full of second chances...if only you keep your heart open for them.
Spring Hill Square is a pretty sanctuary away from the bustle of everyday life. And at its centre is Leni Merryman's Teashop on the Corner, a place where three people will find a friend to lean on.
Carla Pride has just discovered that her late husband Martin was not who she thought he was. But now she must learn to put her marriage behind her and move forward.
Molly Jones' ex-husband Harvey has reappeared in her life after many years, wanting to put right the wrongs of the past before it's too late.
And Will Linton's business has gone bust and his wife has left him to pick up the pieces. Now he needs to gather the strength to start again.
Can all three find the comfort they are looking for in The Teashop on the Corner? And as their hearts are slowly mended by Leni, can they return the favour when she needs in the most?

Thirteen Weddings by Paige Toon (Simon & Schuster, 422 pages) Sometimes you just have to step out of the light to see clearly again...

Bronte never expected to see Alex after their one night together, but she never stopped thinking of him. So when she arrives at work one day to find that Alex is a new colleague, she is secretly thrilled. The only problem is that Alex is now engaged to the girl he was on a break from the night they met.
Determined to move on, Bronte becomes a part-time wedding photographer, alongside her day job. Surrounded by loving couples, tearful bridesmaids, mischievous  pageboys and interfering mother-in-laws, she struggles through wedding after wedding whilst he heart is slowly torn apart.
As Alex's own wedding day draws ever nearer, their chemistry becomes harder to ignore. Bronte must decide whether to fight for the man she loves, or to let him go forever. 

You're The One That I Want by Giovanna Fletcher (Penguin, 400 pages) Maddy, Ben and Robert have been inseparable since they met in the school playground. They've stuck together through thick and thin, feeling safe in the knowledge that they have each other.
So when Ben falls hopelessly in love with Maddy, he decides to keep it quiet for the sake of their friendship. Until Robert swoops in and kisses Maddy- irrevocably fracturing things between them as the kiss turns to love.
But when Robert and Maddy's love turns sour, can Ben continue to say nothing? And can Maddy choose between her two best friends?

Take a Look at Me Now by Miranda Dickinson (Avon, 416 pages) When Nell's on-off boyfriend Aidan calls her into his office, the last thing she expects is to lose her job. Heartbroken and unemployed, she makes a radical decision to blow her redundancy cheque and escape to San Francisco. But is the glamour of the city too good to be true? And can Nell leave her past behind?

A Cottage by the Sea by Carole Matthews (Sphere, 448 pages) Grace had always been best friends with Ella and Flick. The late night chats, shared heartaches and good times have created a bond that has stood the test of time.
When Ella invites them to stay for a week in her cottage in South Wales, Grace jumps at the chance to see her old friends. She also hopes that the change of scenery will help her reconnect with her distant husband.
Then Flick arrives: lovable, bubbly, incorrigible Flick, accompanied by the handsome and charming Noah.
This is going to be one week that will change all of their lives forever...

The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes (Penguin, 624 pages) Helen Walsh doesn't believe in fear- it's just a thing invented by man to get all the money and good  jobs- and yet she's sinking . Her work as a private investigator has dried up, her flat has been repossessed and now some old demons have resurfaced.
Not least in the form of her charming but dodgy ex-boyfriend Jay Parker, who shows up with a missing person case/ Money is tight- so tight Helen's had to move back with her elderly parents- and Jay is awash with cash. The missing person is Wayne Diffney, the 'wacky one' from boyband Laddz.
He's vanished from his house in Mercy Close and it's vital that he's found- Laddz have a sell-out comeback gig in five days time.
Things ended messily with Jay. And she's never going back there. Besides she has a new boyfriend now, the very sexy detective Artie Devlin and it's all going well, even though his ex-wife isn't quite 'ex' enough and his teenage son hates her. But the reappearance of Jay is stirring up all kinds of stuff she thought she'd left behind.
Playing by her own rules, Helen is drawn into a dark and glamorous world, where her worst enemy is her own head and where increasingly she feels connected to Wayne, a man she's never even met. 

To The Moon and Back by Jill Mansell (Headline, 416 pages) When Ellie Kendall loses her husband Jamie in an accident she feels her world has come to an end. But life has to go on and eventually she's ready for a new start- at work, that is. She definitely doesn't need a new man, not while she has a certain secret visitor to keep her company...
Entrepreneur Zack McLaren seems to have it all, but the girl he can't stop thinking about won't give him a second glance. Why can't she pay him the kind of attention she lavishes on Elmo, his time share dog?
Having moved  to an exclusive flat in North London, Ellie becomes friendly with neighbour Roo who's harbouring a secret of her own. Between them, can both girls sort out their lives? Guilt is a powerful emotion, but a lot can happen in a year in Primrose Hill...

Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher: Blog Tour and Review

Morning everyone! I am the second stop on the Billy and Me Blog tour, let's start with my review of this fabulous book by Giovanna Fletcher:

When you've got the dream boyfriend everything should be perfect, right?
So why isn't it? Wonders Sophie May.
When Sophie and Billy met and fell in love, she thought she was living in a fairytale. After all, Billy is an actor, a teen heart-throb adored by girls around the world- and he loves Sophie. She's the only girl for him.
But being on Billy's arm comes at a price. Their relationship has thrown Sophie into the spotlight after years of shying away from all the attention.
Can she handle the constant scrutiny that comes with being with Billy? Most of all, is she ready for her secret heartbreak to be found out and shared with the nation?

Billy and Me is the brilliant debut novel from Giovanna Fletcher. Sophie is working in a little tea shop in her small village of Rosefont Hill when she meets the gorgeous and seriously famous Billy Buskin. They fall in love and Sophie is thrust into Billy's very public life; will she be able to handle the constant attention and is she prepared to put her life on hold in order to support Billy's flourishing career?
The characters of Billy and Sophie are really lovely. At the beginning of the book I found Sophie a little frustrating but as I found out about her past, I understood her actions and attitude a lot more. Sophie has effectively been hiding since her school days, being thrust into the spotlight would be huge for anyone but Sophie finds it particularly difficult seen as she normally does everything she can to go unnoticed.
My favourite character in the book was Molly, she is the owner of Tea-on-the-Hill and Sophie's boss. More importantly though, she is Sophie's best friend. The scenes between Molly and Sophie were particularly touching and they had me in tears at the end of the book.
Giovanna Fletcher is married to Tom from McFly so she obviously has first hand experience of being married to someone famous. Giovanna clearly brings her own experiences to this book but I think she shows that you can still shine in your own right if you are with someone famous. Sophie has to discover who she is and what she wants to achieve just as Giovanna has shown by writing this wonderful book.
As I said, I was in tears by the end of this book and not many have that effect on me. I felt as though Billy and Me was a showcase of Giovanna's writing; she shows how she can be witty, warm, sexy and poignant, all whilst holding the reader's attention. I really hope that we can look forward to more books from this author and I highly recommend Billy and Me.

Dot Scribbles Rating: 5/5

For the blog tour, the very lovely Giovanna Fletcher very kindly talked about where she got the idea for Billy and Me:

A lot of people say you should write what you know. With that in mind, you'd think it would've been easy for me to sit down and write about a girl who fell in love with a guy in a band as I've been in that relationship for almost ten years, and, in fact, that was what I started with when I first got going. My first step was to write out a variety of different ideas and summaries... but I felt so restricted in the band environment. I felt that any idea I had would be questioned as to its origins. Had certain situations happened to me? Is that how I'd felt all that time? The questions would've been endless and they would've focused more on me and less on the characters I wanted to create and portray. I played around with the notion of including the celebrity world that I know, alongside the life of an actor, another life I knew well. 

That was my starting point, but as I started writing and the layers started building it became something else entirely. It's not a simple story of girl meets boy, to me it's far more...but then, I'm bound to say that! 

Giovanna also asked bloggers to tell her the word that came to mind when they looked at the cover of Billy and Me, the word I chose was 'completeness' and here is Giovanna's representation of that in cupcake form:

Thanks for joining me on the second day of the Billy and Me blog, head over to Chloe's Chick Lit Reviews tomorrow!