My Summer Reads: The Love Shack by Jane Costello

 

Gemma and Dan have been together for four years and they've finally found their dream home. Pebble Cottage is everything they want in a home, apart from the asking price, which is way above their budget. Gemma can't bear to say goodbye to Pebble Cottage so she hatches a plan that will allow them to buy it; she and Dan will move in with Dan's mum for a few months to save on rent and build up the Pebble Cottage fund.

 

But life under Belinda's roof isn't easy. She doesn't seem to understand Gemma and Dan's need for privacy and her cooking is atrocious. And as though that wasn't enough to cope with, Gemma is reunited with her first love and she begins to doubt whether her relationship with Dan is as strong as she'd originally thought.

 

Having recently read (and loved) Jane Costello's novella, The Little Things, I was really looking forward to getting stuck into The Love Shack and I wasn't disappointed at all. The Love Shack is everything I want in a book: fun, laugh-out-loud moments and a sprinkling of romance. The Love Shack had me giggling constantly and I couldn't wait to see how things would pan out with Pebble Cottage. Everybody knows buying a house is stressful but add moving back in with your mum/mother-in-law and you can only imagine the pressure cooker of stress Gemma and Dan must have going through.

 

I love Jane Costello's style of writing. It has such an easy flow that you find yourself devouring the pages without realising it and she has a knack of creating vibrant yet believable characters. Although Belinda could be a nightmare, I thought she was a fantastic character and her heart is definitely in the right place. She'd do anything to help her son get his foot on the property ladder, even if Dan won't always accept that help. Dan can be quite stubborn when it comes to accepting gifts or loans of money, but you can understand this when you see where he works.

 

The book is told from alternating chapters from both Gemma and Dan's perspective and I liked this aspect of the book as it gave a rounded view of what was happening and how both were feeling about the progress of the house sale and other events. Although there is a LOT of  humour in the book, there are also some serious and touching scenes.

 

Full of witty and laugh-out-loud moments, The Love Shack was an absolute delight to read and I loved every single page.

 

 

My Summer Reads is a celebration of summer reading, with reviews, giveaways and sunshiny reading habits.

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