Book Review | Unscripted by Claire Handscombe

I was delighted to do the cover reveal for Unscripted by Claire Handscombe on my blog back in December and now I am reviewing it on launch day.   If you are looking for novel recommendations for your summer holiday beach reads then take a closer look!  I am already getting a good stock of books to read from my sun lounger in Turkey!

I have however, been a bit of a slow reader this month - I've been out a lot and very busy - so I have to own up to not finishing the book yet.  But I am enjoying it and have reached the point where I am keen to turn the pages and find out what happens next!

Scarf or sarong from the new Spring range from Sweet Bea

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Nobody is a bigger fan of actor Thomas Cassidy than Libby. Nobody. That's why she's totally going to marry him.

She’s going to write a novel, name the main character after Thom, and find a way to get it to him. Intrigued and flattered, he will read it, fall in love with her prose, and ask to turn it into a movie. She will pretend to think about it, then say: sure, but can I work on it with you? Their eyes will meet over the script… and fade to black.

But with four interwoven lives at play, can anything be that simple?
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Thoughtful, quirky, and moving, Unscripted is a story of friendship and second chances, and asks the question: how far can you take your dream?

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Spending the day at Nirvana Spa with my daughter

​I'm really enjoying the format of the book with the four interwoven lives playing out - each chapter is short and the book is easy to read and I am now finding myself turning the pages quicker and wanting to know what is going to happen.  I 'm enjoying how you get to see the opinion of each character separately in their own words.

I love the relationship between Libby and her friend Dan and they are slowly drawing me in to see what will happen and how it will turn out for them.  I have my ideas already!

It is a contemporary novel based on real life, so I can easily identify with their thoughts and dreams and desires for the future, their ambitions for love and life.  Their overthinking and worries are just the same as everyone else and has me smiling in lots of places.  

I am an absolute sucker for a good romance novel and this ticks all the boxes for me,   It is chick-lit and rom-com and I can't wait to find out what happens in the end!

It's time to start stocking up on your holidays reads especially if you are heading off to the sun - so don't miss adding this one to your selection.

Available to purchase from Amazon here.

You can find out more about the author on her website and follow her on social  media here:

www.clairehandscombe.com
Twitter
Facebook

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A bit about the author ...

​Claire Handscombe is a British writer who grew up in London, Brussels, and Suffolk. After she finished high school, she took a year out to work for a church in Guernsey, then went on to Cambridge, where she studied French and Spanish at King’s College.

Though she wrote prolifically as a child, she did so in French, her mother tongue. After she moved back to the UK at the age of 12, she found herself increasingly thinking in English, and with her gradual loss of French came the loss of writing as a creative outlet.

When, by chance, in her late twenties, she started watching The West Wing on a friend’s computer, she fell in love with the series, and Aaron Sorkin’s mastery of language sparked a visceral love of English in her and reignited her desire to write. It also reawakened her political zeal and made her curious to visit the USA in general and Washington, DC, in particular. She was able to do so in 2009, and she was enchanted by the city and became determined to move there – which she did, in 2012, when she began an MFA in Creative Writing at American University. She has lived there since then, having been deemed an “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” by the Government and awarded the relevant visa after finishing her studies.

She remains an avid fan of The West Wing and an active member of its community of devotees. She has met any of the cast, self-published an anthology in 2016 entitled Walk With Us: How The West Wing Changed Our Lives, and helped organise the first ever gathering of fans of the show, The West Wing Weekend, which took place in the DC area in 2018.
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To date, she has written five novels, of which Unscripted is the third, and the first to be published. She was recently long-listed for the Bath Novel Award for another. Her journalism, poetry, and essays have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Bustle, Writing Magazine, and the Washington Post. She writes regularly for Book Riot, a major publishing website in the USA, and hosts the Brit Lit Podcast, a fortnightly show of news and views from British books and publishing.

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Do let me know if you have any good recommendations for beach reads this summer!

Love
Michelle xx
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