One Summer Weekend by Juliet Archer
Published by Ruby Fiction/Choc Lit
Publication Date: 19th June 2018
Genre: Romanctic Comedy/Womens Fiction
128 pages
Book Description:
One summer weekend can change everything … Alicia Marlowe’s life as an executive coach is well under control – until she meets her new client, Jack Smith. Jack’s reputation precedes him and Alicia knows immediately that he spells trouble. Not least because he reminds her of someone else – a man who broke her heart and made her resolve never to lower her guard again.
Taking Jack on as a client is a risk, but one that Alicia decides to take for the good of her career. As long as she keeps him in his place, she might just make it through unscathed. But Jack has other ideas – including a ‘business’ trip to the Lake District. One summer weekend with him is all it takes to put Alicia’s carefully organised world in a spin …
Taking Jack on as a client is a risk, but one that Alicia decides to take for the good of her career. As long as she keeps him in his place, she might just make it through unscathed. But Jack has other ideas – including a ‘business’ trip to the Lake District. One summer weekend with him is all it takes to put Alicia’s carefully organised world in a spin …
My Review:
I think I have mentioned before in my reviews that I don't often read short stories/novellas as I prefer to really get to know the characters and have a bit more depth to the plot which usually only happens with a full length novel. This book from Juliet Archer has once again blown that theory completely out of the water.
We meet Alicia in her role as an executive coach and I found her to be particularly frosty and clinical in her approach to life and the problems it has a tendency to throw at every one of us at some time in our lives. It's as though she has read the textbook and lives by the rules set down in it - grey areas just do not exist in her world. Then as the pages turned, I gradually started to see another side to her and began to wonder just what had made her build the barriers which she so clearly lives behind.
Her client Jack Smith appears to be outgoing, confident - literally "Jack the lad" amongst the ladies with his dashing good looks and fly-by-night attitude. Something about him obviously hits a nerve with Alicia so she redoubles her efforts to keep him at arms length with icy responses to any of his questions and the metaphoric walls she has built begin to feel more like physical ones the more the two characters interact.
As part of Jack's coaching experience Alicia asks to observe him in a business setting with a client which results in Alicia finding herself travelling to the Lake District and feeling well and truly out of her depth. Jack hasn't been entirely honest with Alicia or his clients and the weekend starts with a very awkward scenario which Alicia really isn't comfortable with. I loved the characters Bill and Midge, Jack's clients, and really enjoyed how their role in the book panned out. The descriptions of the scenery they live amidst are beautiful - so much so that I have added a trip to the area to my list of places I want to explore one day.
During their stay in the countryside Jack and Alicia gradually learn more about each other and slowly but surely start to knock down each other's defences. It's difficult to go into too much detail without spoiling the story for anyone yet to read the book but their journey is not without its hurdles and there is more than one occasion where I wondered whether the pair would actually manage to complete the coaching exercise let alone reach a point where they would understand what made the other tick.
Although the two main characters are prominent in this story I love the supporting cast of characters who pepper the book throughout. From ex partners to business associates there are some nicely crafted personalities that the author has written in; some only make fleeting appearances but influence the overall story quite significantly, which I feel made the book work very well.
For a short story there is still a satisfying depth to this book, so if you fancy something fairly quick to read but which is still fulfilling then this is definitely one worth picking up.
My thanks to the author Juliet Archer and Rachel, tour organiser for Rachel's Random Resources, for the opportunity to read this book and offer my unbiased review as part of the blog tour.
We meet Alicia in her role as an executive coach and I found her to be particularly frosty and clinical in her approach to life and the problems it has a tendency to throw at every one of us at some time in our lives. It's as though she has read the textbook and lives by the rules set down in it - grey areas just do not exist in her world. Then as the pages turned, I gradually started to see another side to her and began to wonder just what had made her build the barriers which she so clearly lives behind.
Her client Jack Smith appears to be outgoing, confident - literally "Jack the lad" amongst the ladies with his dashing good looks and fly-by-night attitude. Something about him obviously hits a nerve with Alicia so she redoubles her efforts to keep him at arms length with icy responses to any of his questions and the metaphoric walls she has built begin to feel more like physical ones the more the two characters interact.
As part of Jack's coaching experience Alicia asks to observe him in a business setting with a client which results in Alicia finding herself travelling to the Lake District and feeling well and truly out of her depth. Jack hasn't been entirely honest with Alicia or his clients and the weekend starts with a very awkward scenario which Alicia really isn't comfortable with. I loved the characters Bill and Midge, Jack's clients, and really enjoyed how their role in the book panned out. The descriptions of the scenery they live amidst are beautiful - so much so that I have added a trip to the area to my list of places I want to explore one day.
During their stay in the countryside Jack and Alicia gradually learn more about each other and slowly but surely start to knock down each other's defences. It's difficult to go into too much detail without spoiling the story for anyone yet to read the book but their journey is not without its hurdles and there is more than one occasion where I wondered whether the pair would actually manage to complete the coaching exercise let alone reach a point where they would understand what made the other tick.
Although the two main characters are prominent in this story I love the supporting cast of characters who pepper the book throughout. From ex partners to business associates there are some nicely crafted personalities that the author has written in; some only make fleeting appearances but influence the overall story quite significantly, which I feel made the book work very well.
For a short story there is still a satisfying depth to this book, so if you fancy something fairly quick to read but which is still fulfilling then this is definitely one worth picking up.
My thanks to the author Juliet Archer and Rachel, tour organiser for Rachel's Random Resources, for the opportunity to read this book and offer my unbiased review as part of the blog tour.
Follow The Tour:
About The Author:
Juliet Archer writes
award-winning romantic comedy for Choc Lit and Ruby Fiction. She has been known
to spend many happy hours matching irresistible heroes with their equally
irresistible chocolate counterparts – watch out for the dark nutty ones!
Her debut novel, The Importance of Being Emma, won the
Big Red Read Book of the Year 2011 Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the
2009 Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. Her second novel, Persuade Me, was shortlisted for the
2011 Festival of Romance Best Romantic Read Award.
Juliet’s third book, One Summer Weekend, is out in June 2018. You can also
read her short stories: Incense &
Insensibility in the Choc Lit Love Match anthology, and Love Rules in Choc Lit’s Kisses &
Cupcakes anthology.
Juliet was born and bred
in North-East England and now lives in Hertfordshire. She gives talks all over
the UK and in the USA about the classic authors who inspire her work. She is a
member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Society of Authors and the
Jane Austen Society. Her non-writing career has spanned IT, acquisitions
analysis, copy editing, marketing and project management, providing plenty of
first-hand research for her novels.
Social Media Links:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/julietarcher
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/juliet.archer.77/
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