Twenties girl

Review by Booklist Review

Kinsella, author of the wildly popular Shopaholic series, takes an unconventional turn in her latest novel. Lara Lington is nursing a broken heart and trying to keep her business afloat, but not so typically she is also dealing with the ghost of her great-aunt Sadie. Sadie appears as a young woman, a feisty flapper, who wants Lara's help finding a treasured beaded necklace. Lara's search leads her to London's National Gallery, where a famous portrait holds the key to the necklace's origins and to her wealthy uncle, whose rapid rise to success may have received an unexplained boost. As Lara helps Sadie find her peace, Sadie helps Lara learn to enjoy life again. With Sadie's urging, Lara embarks on a new romance, wears vintage flapper clothing, and even learns the Charleston. Kinsella juggles romance, mystery, and a spirited spirit with quirky but thoroughly charming results.--Walker, Aleksandra Copyright 2009 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Think Topper, that impossibly sophisticated and goofy 1937 ghost tale of blithe spirits bugging the only living soul who can hear them. Kinsella creates an equally vexing and endearing shade, Sadie, a wild-at-heart flapper with unfinished earthly business who badgers 27-year-old great-niece Lara into doing her bidding. Predictable mayhem and the most delicious and delightful romp a ghost and girl-at-loose-ends could ever have in 21st century London ensue. Sadie discovers just how loved she really is, and Lara channels her inner '20s girl to discover the difference between wanting to be in love and finding love. Kinsella, a master of comic pacing and feminine wit (see: the wildly successful Shopaholic series), casts a bigger net with this piece of fun and fluff, weaving family dynamics and an old-fashioned mystery into the familiar chick lit romance. And there's a sweet nod to old folks ("All that white hair and wrinkled skin is just cladding.... They were all young, with love affairs and friends and parties and an endless life ahead of them"). It's a breath of crackling fresh air that may well keep readers warm right through winter. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Struggling Londoner gets the shock of a lifetime when the meddlesome ghost of a recently deceased relative haunts her. Between relationship woes, work dramas and the day-to-day life of a city gal, Lara could probably be excused for having minimal contact with Great-Aunt Sadie during the last years of her life. The woman was, after all, 105 and confined to a nursing home. Still, Lara feels guilty when hardly anyone shows up to the old lady's funeral. Her sadness quickly gives way to confusion, though, as first the voice and then the form of a 1920s flapper appear before her. It's Sadie in her youth, and Lara is the only one she can communicate with directly. Opinionated, loud and self-absorbed, Sadie is primarily interested in retrieving a lost necklace before moving on to her final rest, but she's also determined to squeeze in a bit more action. To this end she sets her sights on a handsome young American named Ed who reminds her of Rudolph Valentino. Using her supernatural powers, Sadie gets into Ed's head and convinces him to ask out Lara, who is still hung up on her ex, the unworthy Josh. This results in an understandably awkward first date during which Sadie dictates, Cyrano-style, what Lara should do to seduce Ed. Lara, for her part, gets a lead on the missing piece of jewelry and uncovers Sadie's tragic past as an artist's muse, unjustly separated from the only man she really loved. In spite of their differences (the whole living vs. dead thing) the two grow close, and Lara takes some steps in her personal and professional life that she probably would not have taken without the freewheeling flapper by her side. Kinsella (Remember Me?, 2008, etc.) is in her element with scattered, wisecracking Lara, and Sadie (and her outfits) are fabulous. But this one goes on a bit longer than necessary. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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ONE The thing about lying to your parents is, you have to do it to protect them. It's for their own good. I mean, take my own parents. If they knew the unvarnished truth about my finances/love life/ plumbing/council tax, they'd have instant heart attacks and the doctor would say, "Did anyone give them a terrible shock?" and it would all be my fault. Therefore, they have been in my flat for approximately ten minutes and already I have told them the following lies: 1. L&N Executive Recruitment will start making profits soon, I'm sure of it. 2. Natalie is a fantastic business partner, and it was a really brilliant idea to chuck in my job to become a headhunter with her. 3. Of course I don't just exist on pizza, black cherry yogurts, and vodka. 4. Yes, I did know about interest on parking tickets. 5. Yes, I did watch that Charles Dickens DVD they gave me for Christmas; it was great, especially that lady in the bonnet. Yes, Peggotty. That's who I meant. 6. I was actually intending to buy a smoke alarm at the weekend, what a coincidence they should mention it. 7. Yes, it'll be nice to see all the family again. Seven lies. Not including all the ones about Mum's outfit. And we haven't even mentioned The Subject. As I come out of my bedroom in a black dress and hastily applied mascara, I see Mum looking at my overdue phone bill on the mantelpiece. "Don't worry," I say quickly. "I'm going to sort that out." "Only, if you don't," says Mum, "they'll cut off your line, and it'll take ages for you to get it installed again, and the mobile signal is so patchy here. What if there was an emergency? What would you do?" Her brow is creased with anxiety. She looks as though this is all totally imminent, as though there's a woman screaming in labor in the bedroom and floods are rising outside the window and how will we contact the helicopter? How? "Er . . . I hadn't thought about it. Mum, I'll pay the bill. Honest." Mum's always been a worrier. She gets this tense smile with distant, frightened eyes, and you just know she's playing out some apocalyptic scenario in her head. She looked like that throughout my last speech day at school; afterward she confessed she'd suddenly noticed a chandelier hanging above on a rickety chain and became obsessed by what would happen if it fell down on the girls' heads and splintered into smithereens? Now she tugs at her black suit, which has shoulder pads and weird metal buttons and is swamping her. I vaguely remember it from about ten years ago, when she had a phase of going on job interviews and I had to teach her all the really basic computer stuff like how to use a mouse. She ended up working for a children's charity, which doesn't have a formal dress code, thank goodness. No one in my family looks good in black. Dad's wearing a suit made out of a dull black fabric which flattens all his features. He's actually quite handsome, my dad, in a kind of fine-boned, understated way. His hair is brown and wispy, whereas Mum's is fair and wispy like mine. They both look really great when they're relaxed and on their own territory-like, say, when we're all in Cornwall on Dad's rickety old boat, wearing fleeces and eating pasties. Or when Mum and Dad are playing in their local amateur orchestra, which is where they first met. But today, nobody's relaxed. "So are you ready?" Mum glances at my stockinged feet. "Where are your shoes, darling?" I slump down on the sofa. "Do I have to go?" "Lara!" says Mum chidingly. "She was your great-aunt. She was one hundred and five, you know." Mum has told me my great-aunt was 105 approximately 105 times. I'm pretty sure it's because that's the only fact she knows about her. "So what? I didn't know her. None of us knew her. T Excerpted from Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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