Book Review: The Unpredictable Consequences of Love by Jill Mansell

The Unpredictable Consequences of Love by Jill Mansell
Release Date: 5th June 2014 (Paperback)
Publisher: Headline Review
Buy: Paperback Kindle
Rating:

In the idyllic seaside town of St Carys, Sophie is putting the past firmly behind her.

When Josh arrives in St Carys to run the family hotel, he can’t understand why Sophie has zero interest in letting any man into her life. He also can’t understand how he’s been duped into employing Sophie’s impulsive friend Tula, whose crush on him is decidedly unrequited.

St Carys has more than its fair share of characters, including the charming but utterly feckless surfer Riley Bryant, who has a massive crush on Tula. Riley’s aunt is superstar author Marguerite Marshall. And Marguerite has designs on Josh’s grandfather…who in turn still adores his glamorous ex-wife, Dot…

Just how many secrets can one seaside town keep?

The Unpredictable Consequences of Love is set in the beautiful sounding St Carys and follows a group of characters, whose stories are all intertwined together nicely. First up we meet Sophie who has moved to St Carys to concentrate on her career as a photographer. She has had a bad experience with relationships in the past, meaning that a romance is out of the question, much to the detriment of Josh, who has also recently moved to the town from LA to help his grandmother with running the family hotel. Josh is immediately taken with Sophie and is desperate to find out why she’s so reluctant to enter into a relationship not just with him, but it seems, with anyone.
Then there’s Riley. Seemingly too busy enjoying life to buckle down and get a ‘proper’ job, Riley spends his days surfing, on the lookout for his next conquest and being a so called ‘assistant’ to his famous aunt, Marguerite Marshall, who is well-loved author. However when he finds himself falling for Sophie’s friend Tula, who has also recently moved to St Carys, he is dismayed to find that she’s not interested in him…at all… which is a concept Riley is unfamiliar with. Can Josh and Riley get to the bottom of what’s really going on with Sophie and Tula and win their hearts after all?

Jill Mansell is one of my all time favourite authors. You know you can rely on her books to have an interesting array of characters, beautiful settings, gripping storylines and plenty of romance. The Unpredictable Consequences of Love is no different. I always seem to enjoy Jill’s books and I can safely say that her latest novel is up there with some of her best! Jill is such a talented storyteller and I had no trouble envisaging the characters or the beautiful seaside town of St Carys, you really do feel transported into a different world when reading her novels and I found The Unpredictable Consequences of Love to be absorbing and a real escapist read.

There’s such a brilliant variety of personalities in this story and although it may seem that Sophie is going to be the main character at the start of the book you soon come to realise that this isn’t the case as we meet more of the inhabitants of St Carys and uncover how the secrets of their past affect how they are today. I didn’t find the story to be confusing or lose track of who was who despite this, as I think the characters were all so unique and extremely different from one another. For example, although you have the story of Sophie and Josh– you also discover the relationship between Josh’s Grandmother Dot and her ex Husband Lawrence and then there’s Riley’s aunt, Marguerite who is also quite keen on Lawrence… All the generations in this story were equally as gripping and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know everyone.
I was particularly interested in Tula and Riley’s potential relationship…there were times when I wanted to give Tula and good shake and although I could understand her reasons for not wanting a relationship with Riley I just wanted them to be together in the end. You’ll definitely be eager to find out what happens between these two as the story goes on and takes one or two surprising twists and turns along the way.

I also love the cover of this novel. The covers of Jill Mansell’s novels are usually beautiful, but I particularly like the bright yellow colouring of this one. It’ll make you feel spring-like and definitely brighten up any drab days, as will the heart-warming story itself. With The Unpredictable Consequences of Love Jill Mansell secures her title as one of the best-loved, most popular chick lit authors.

*Book was my own personal copy.

Jill Mansell lives with her partner and children in Bristol, and writes full time.
Actually that’s not true; she watches TV, eats fruit gums, admires the rugby players training in the sports field behind her house, and spends hours on the internet Tweeting and marvelling at how many other writers have blogs. Only when she’s completely run out of displacement activities does she actually write.

Follow Jill on Twitter at @JillMansell.

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