Books Read: Lisa Dickenson - You Had me at Merlot

Elle and Laurie are the last ones standing: they're single, they're not having babies any time soon and their weekends aren't filled with joyful meetings about mortgages. For Elle, this is fine - she likes her independent life, she loves her job, and she has no desire to walk down the aisle anytime soon. But Laurie wants love and she wants it now.

So when Laurie begs Elle to come with her on a singles holiday to a beautiful vineyard in Tuscany, Elle is reluctant. You Had Me at Merlot Holidays promises crisp sunshine, fun and a chance to stir up some sizzling romance. Elle has no intention of swapping her perfectly lovely life for someone else's idea of her Mr Perfect, but ten days under the Italian sun with her best friend and lashings of wine? How bad could that be?

Amazon links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4

Lisa Dickenson is back with another hilarious tale to keep us entertained especially on depressing Summer days like today!  You Had me at Merlot features best friends Elle and Laurie, one who is happy being single whilst the other wants nothing more than to meet Mr Right and settle down like the rest of their friends have.  When Laurie decides she wants to go on a singles holiday she has to convince Elle to go with her but the sway of it being in a vineyard in the Tuscan countryside makes it sound slightly more appealing and Elle reluctantly agrees.

The setting for this story was just perfect, I mean who wouldn't want to go on holiday in a vineyard and with the potential of a holiday romance thrown in... what more could a girl want?  I loved how Laurie threw herself into the whole experience whilst Elle took a little convincing, the contrast between them works so well.  Out of the two I can relate more to Elle but both were great characters and it was fun to see them interacting with everyone they meet, from the hosts of the vineyard to the rest of the singles on holiday.

And for anyone who follows Lisa on Twitter you'll definitely recognise Lisa's personality shining through with reference to a particular iconic song and dance.

I honestly didn't think Lisa would be able to top her debut novel The Twelve Dates of Christmas but she certainly has and some, there are not enough superlatives for what I thought of this book.  I loved everything about it, the concept, the interesting mix of characters, but especially the vineyard which sounded divine and somewhere I would love to visit although maybe not on a singles holiday but if I could meet a leading man like Jamie maybe I could be persuaded...

The one thing I am glad of was that I was able to enjoy it in a single setting as I received a proof of all 4 episodes, I don't think I could have coped with the wait of a week for the next installment to be published and fortunately you don't have to either as all 4 are now published :-)

Having loved both of Lisa's novels so far I cannot wait to see what she has in store for us next, let's hope that it's not too long of a wait.

I'd like to thank Clara at Little Brown for sending me a proof copy of this fab book to review.