Perfect Timing * Jill Mansell

Perfect Timing By Jill Mansell

Poppy Dunbar is out on her hen night whens he meets Tom Kennedy. With his dark eyes and quirky smile, he could lure any girl off the straight and narrow, but what really draws Poppy to him is the feeling that she's known him all her life. She can't go through with the meeting they arrange - but she can't go through with the wedding either.

Suddenly notorious as 'The Girl Who Jilted Rob Macbride', Poppy moved to London. Soon she's installed in the bohemian household of Caspar French, a ravishingly good-looking young artist with a reputation for breaking hearts. But even in her colourful new home, Poppy can't get Tom off her mind. Until she tracks him down, she'll never know if their meeting was destiny - or if the future holds something entirely different for her...

Poppy was due to have the best day of her life, in a total of five hours. Up until she ran through her, soon-to-be husband's door and admitting that she didn't want to marry him in the end. All down to a certain someone, who Poppy had met on the night of her hen night and fell in love at first sight. With a total stranger.

After what seemed like an eternity of putting up with  angry relatives, and the total shock of finding out the father she'd once loved and always knew. Turned out not to be her real father at all.  Poppy finally escapes and heads straight to London. Having to live in a run down motel, Poppy scrapes what cash she can get by working as a waiter for the posh food company, Kenda's Kitchen.

Over hearing Claudia, the posh blond who lives int he house Poppy is waiting in, she soon jumps to the proposition of living in the house with Claudia and her house mate, Caspar French. The ever so handsome and charming artist who works in his studio upstairs.

Soon Poppy is living at  Cornwallis Crescent, as long with her new flatmates Caspar French and Claudia Slade-Welsh. Though Claudia doesn't like this one bit, she's jealous of how Poppy looks and how easy going she is, plus to top it all off she didn't have half the style as whats he had herself. Though he ha learn that over the years from her pushy irritating mother, Angie Slade-Welsh. The ever so glamorous and beautifully elegant woman for her age. Always stuck her nose in Claudia's love life.

Caspar on the other hand is easy going and in all honesty a bit of a man slag, but he enjoys the way his life is. So what does it matter if he strings three girls along with him at the same time. No one can get hurt right? Poppy disagrees and ends up giving him a good stern talking too, telling him to sort his life out, but was that such a good move after all?
When her Mr. Rights start slowly wilting.

Then there's Jake, the handy business man, working in the market stall and fascinated by the old antiques market and antiques road show. With his nerdy look, and his shyness around women, it's no wonder he hasn't found Mrs. Right yet, like all the others. But all it takes is a closer look into his friendship circle to find the right one.

And deep down in a Jazz bar in London, a dashing woman named Rita is somehow linked to Poppy, but she doesn't know why and neither does Poppy. Until she finds out interesting facts about her real fathers life and where he's been, and who he's been with.

Perfect Timing by Jill Mansell, is the fourth book I've read by this author. I really do love Mansell's books as you can really connect with them, on some levels. The only things that women would talk about or find a big crisis in the smallest of things, for example. Though after reading a few of her books now, I start to see myself already guessing who the main character will fall in love with even if I'm all the way near the start of the book. 

Which is a bit of a let down, but that said I do enjoy knowing who they will end up with. But I do think there needs to be more structure and mystery to whom the main character will fall in love with. The characters are well written as always and have good backgrounds, though some of them are the same with never finding love or the right man, leaving home and finding somewhere else to live etc. 

My favourite character of all out of the whole book had to  be Rita. The way she was written and I loved it, I saw myself knowing someone just like her when i was younger which made me smile a little. I loved her laid back attitude and cool aura.

I will give this book 5 out of 10

The Illustrated Man * Ray Bradbury

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

If El Greco had painted miniatures in his prime, no bigger than your hand, infinitely detailed, with his sulphurous colour and exquisite human anatomy, perhaps he might have used this man's body for his art...

Yet the Illustrated Man had tried to burn the illustrations  off. He's tried sandpaper, acid, and a knife. Because, as the sun sets, the pictures glow like charcoals, like scattered gems. They quiver and come to life. Tiny pink hands gesture, tiny mouths flicker as the figures enact there stories - voices rise, small and muted, predicting the future.

Blending magic, imagination and truth with Bradbury's rich storytelling skills and beautifully crafted imagery, these startling and thought provoking visions of humankind's destiny. 

Imagine being in the future, what would you think 2021 would be like? Will there be flying saucers? Aliens? Robots?

Sit back and let Ray Bradbury be your guide, and take your into a world of mayhem, strangeness, wild stories and a bit of horror. 

Imagine your whole house fully electronic. Food being cooked and served from the table itself, air chutes to take you around your home. Self bathing baths, cleaning you with robotic arms and hands. 

Even a room that has life like walls that come to life, by reading any book. You could read a book on Africa and watch your walls change into a new scenery  then have lions walk out into your very room, close enough to touch!

Or how about rocket rides to Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn? 

Living on a different planet entirely, miles and miles away from earth. 

How about walking through the trenches, having constant water, rain upon your head? Like Chinese water torture, never getting any sleep. whilst trying to find the sun dome, the only places that have sunlight left. 

Maybe you'd like to invest in your own identical robot? For those times you want to leave the house, but can't? Well now you can! just turn your robot self on, go out and have fun! Know one will know, it will be like leaving yourself at home, literally!

What about walking into a haunted house, and a robotic one at that. with bats flying around your face on arrival and rats scurrying about your feet, constant ticking of the butlers and maids. Dressing up in fancy dress and having Ghouls, ghosts and monsters lurking around every room and corner. 

But the house isn't so friendly, with screaming, shouting, blood guts and gore. You won't know if it's yourself losing your life, or a clone. 

Welcome to the House of Usher.

If you could travel back in time to anywhere in the world, where would you go? Perhaps three years ago into your own past, See family members as they we're younger? 

What about back to the 1900's? Or maybe 1800 A.D? To be able to see the burning of Rome, or the Colosseum being built all those years ago? Experience WW1 & WW2? It's all up to you, just don't change the past!

And after all this, the final question is, would you trade places with your own child? If they we're being bullied, would you give them your life in exchange for theirs? Or would you tell them to grow up and take it? To defend for them self? The only problem is, would be that you would have to suffer in the playground, for years and years to come of torture. 

And all this, painted upon one mans skin. Against his own will, branded by ink and illustrations, that always come to life whenever he sleeps, and when the sun sets. They light up like lamps, scaring him to death. 

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury is a wonderful book, with a collection of stories all full of imagination and fun. 

This is the first book that I have read by Bradbury and loved every minute of it, and could never put it down. I loved the way he captured the readers imagination and made me feel like i was in the actually book. The stories are wonderful and bursting with magic. 

The way he makes the stories come to life, breath in and out through the pages, sigh on every turn and make your head spin with all the different types of stories. From future to past, living and non living, real life and robots, space and time. Everything will make you think wonders, and even possibly causing yourself, to want to live in these worlds. 

I know I thought that. 

To say that I have never read a Sci-fi book before, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be reading more books by Bradbury. I honestly haven't read anything like this, with so much imaginary that literally oozes out of the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who, as always, fancies a change in their reading style. 

Or someone who wants to read something full of different stories and bursting with imagination. I would also recommend this to people who are fond tattoos, have tattoo's or simply a tattoo artist. I think you would enjoy this book. 

This book is a  classic and I am rating it at 10 out of 10!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! 

This year I plan to read more books than last as I only just reached my goal, plus I read less books in 2011 than I did in 2012! But things are going to change. 

I wish you all the very best for this year, and for the rest of your future, even though I'll be saying all this same stuff in another 12 months. 

Hope you all have a wonderful year, and may the pages keep turning in your life, literally!

Lots of love, and hugs

Emma xxx