Books Read: Lucy Robinson - A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger

Charley Lambert has worked hard at creating a perfect life. She has an aspirational flat, a job of international significance and a very good pair of legs, thanks to a rigorous health and fitness regime. Best of all, her boss has asked her out after seven years' hard flirting and a covert fumble in a mop cupboard. 

Then she breaks her leg in three places, watches her boss propose to someone else and - horror - is forced to hand over her job to her nasty deputy. Charley, a certified workaholic, fears that she will go mad. 

Dangerously bored, she starts helping people who are talentless at internet dating. Then William arrives in her inbox and rocks her world. Helpless, she watches herself fall in love with him and discovers she's not who she thought she was.

But can she turn her back on her old life - all for a total stranger?

Charley Lambert's whole world revolves around her job, she's good at it and would probably work 24 hours a day if she could! It doesn't hurt that she's got a bit of a flirtation going on with her boss which despite a drunken encounter in a cupboard has not led to anything further.  So when Charley has a freak accident and breaks her leg in 3 places, she thinks she's going to end up climbing the walls being stuck at home all day.  

She needs to find herself a new challenge to keep herself occupied so decides to set up an online service offering to help women correspond with their matches on online dating sites.  Soon she's swept up in the new romance between her client Shelley, an extremely busy and bossy business woman, and her date William except the more she reads William's responses to 'Shelley's' emails the more she wishes she could meet a guy like William.  But little does she know that her ideal guy might be closer than she thinks...   

This was definitely a romance story with a bit of a difference with lots of great characters, Charley, her eccentric family, flatmate Sam, best friend Hayley, and even her horrible workmate Margot.  I have to confess that my favourite was Sam and I might have had a tiny crush on him whilst reading this... I know I know he's not real... but he sounded such a loveable rogue.

It's an extremely well-written funny story with lots of laugh out loud moments throughout so be warned you could find yourself bursting into spontaneous laughter at the most inopportune moment... as I did in a hospital waiting room!    I loved how it all turned out right for Charley in the end, which was a little predictable but I didn't care, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger was one of the books on my Amazon wishlist to buy myself a copy when I finally managed to clear my TBR pile... but I can now remove it as I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from Real Readers.  The reason I was surprised is because this was the second book I'd received from them to review in a matter of weeks when last year I averaged a book every couple of months.