Holidays, Holidays, Holidays…

 Candice:  As I mentioned in my last blog I been doing my favourite thing, swanning off on holiday.   I LOVE going away, partly because the weather in the UK is crap, but mainly because it’s a break from life/work and the general treadmill of life.  For 1 or 2 weeks, I don’t have to work out where the cash is coming from, check my bank balance, pay any bills, feed the cat, deal with emails or phone calls or even look at the web, if I don’t choose to.

I am amazed at some of our friends who don’t go on holiday, or holiday at home.  I can’t understand how they can’t survive with out a switch off.  I suppose it is because I run at 100 miles an hour when I am at home so I need the total escape from everything.

One of the books I read when I was away was Kiss Heaven Goodbye by Tasmina Perry.  I’ve read another book by her recently, which I enjoyed, so I thought this would make a good holiday read.

The premise is a group of friends who do something stupid at the age of 21 which then follows them through their lives and impacts on their life choices.  Two come from a rich family and the others from middle class or work class lifestyles. They all go off to have successful careers in business, fashion and music but have major flaws and can’t forget this incident. It reminds me of a Jackie Collins in some ways as its a bit of a ‘bonk buster’ too.

I have to say I didn’t really sympathise too much with any of the characters because they were all nasty pieces of work.  I suppose the one I liked at all was Alex, the boy from the North who became a successful musician but then drank himself out of a job.

I always struggle a bit with books written about people with amazing lifestyles as I can’t relate to what they are doing, though I suppose this is meant to be escapism, not making me jealous!

However, it does romp along at a good pace and jumps from year to year in such a way that you are dropped into the person’s life at salient points, but effectively covers 20 years.  And there is a good twist at the end, which I did work out but only just before it is explained to the characters. Actually, it’s probably very close to the kind of thing I’d be writing if I had publishing contract!

Out of curiosity, I had a look at Tasmina’s website  before writing this article, and I have decided, sod escapism, I want her life!  She is an ex-journalist who now writes books and then travels the world writing travel articles.  Can you see the resemblance?  I’m going to contact her and see if she wants an assistant….

Daddy’s Girls by Tasmina Perry

Candice: Opens ‘ A stylish group of four figures walks into the room, though they are sister’s, each one has a unique style and stance.’

And that is the front cover of this book.  However, the back tells a different story…

‘But money doesn’t buy you love.  When their aristocratic and tyrannical father is found dead, the finger of suspicion points towards the glamorous daughters…’

So, how far into the book are you expecting the father’s death, first page, 10 pages in?  How about around 500.  Unfortunately, all though I enjoyed this book I kept stopping at certain points to read the back and check what I was reading.  Yes, it definitely says the Dad dies, ok must be in the next section… and on and on I read.  It’s a bit like knowing the ending or in my case, waiting for the scene I filmed to be shown.  (In fact, when I did Line of Duty last year I spent the whole series going “where’s the car chase?” – last scene…)

So, back to the start with this book, what is the premise?  Four glamorous sisters (well that’s a given) who all have different personalities; one an actress, one a journalist, another a lawyer and one a downtrodden wife (with her own clothing line, of course).  Their lives intertwine as they fall in and out with each other and try to discover themselves.  The father is the tyrant that they love to hate but who drives them on to be who they are.  Along the way there are affairs, pregnancies and of course, the odd undiscovered scandal.  The whole story runs along quite well, and without the distraction of when is Dad dying, I would have really enjoyed it.

It’s funny that Phil and I have been criticised for having too many characters in our writing.  But it this case I think there were too many protagonists.  Each sister could have her own book as they all have their own story and I would have liked to follow each one.  In fact, that would be similar to Cat as there are other books by Freya North about Cat’s sisters. Hey, perhaps we should write those four stories and we have our own equivalent to fifty shades fan fiction!

All in all and good sunbed read – so good that when I went back to my favourite charity shop there was another book by Tasmina, so I’ve picked that up for next holiday!