Swimming with Dolphins [Paperback]

I loved this book! It was warm, poignant and totally inspiring. Deborah Wright has created a cast of wonderfully vivid characters who are so believable. I adored Julia, and her relationship with best friend, Reece, was one of the highlights of the book for me. Luke - the gorgeous traveller with the Bob Dylan T-shirt - was another great character who leapt off the page. I really warmed to him. There was also a wonderful storyline about Julia's search for her father which I found very moving.

Fabulous locations, great touches of humour and complex relationships between characters had me turning the pages rapidly until I'd finished. I now want to write my own 'list' and that could well include swimming with dolphins!

I read and adored Deborah Wright's previous novel The Celebrity Mother earlier this year, so I was really surprised to discover that just 11 months later, Deborah had another book coming out. I loved her the previous one, so I was really excited to read this one and see if Wright's story-telling would live up to my expectations. In deep contrast to many of the latest releases we have seen on the shelf recently, this book has a gorgeous summery themed cover, and is certainly one to read and brighten up these somewhat dull autumn/winter days. I think the cover really reflects the book perfectly and it's nice to see something bright and sunny on the shelves for once!

The book dives straight in to the top 10 ideas list of Julia's which is good because it throws the reader into the middle of the story and immediately makes it unputdownable. Wright chooses to go back to the idea of the Top 10 by Julia's flatmate through the use of small flashbacks, which occur throughout the book as well, and are used to explain things that are mentioned by Julia in the present. I really liked the way this is done because it allows the backstory to come through easily without bogging down the book too much and therefore getting too engrossed in the past. Julia's first dream is to sleep with an Italian man, so first of all we follow Julia en route to Rome. Through this journey, we meet another important character that is prominent throughout the book, a traveller named Luke.

Wright has actually kept the main cast list of this book fairly small, keeping to just Julia, Reece, Luke and Reece's boyfriend Ciaran. Of course, other characters pop up as the book progresses but they don't hang around for long, and the book just maintains focus on these 4 people. Julia is very likeable. She's actually a really realistic character because she's lost her job, she is conscious of running out of money and she is actually pretty hesitant about carrying out her list despite the fact she is free to do what she wants. I think that is what I'd be like - keen to write the list but fulfilling it would be a different matter altogether! Julia is so easy to warm to and the perfect lead character. We see the whole story from Julia's point of view, so it is important to like her and her narrative, but it wasn't a problem for me at all.

As for the other characters, they were very well created too. Luke was a bit of a mystery, and not necessarily a character that I warmed to throughout the novel. He had something about him which made me dislike him very much. As his story is revealed, I think we are supposed to perhaps understand why he is like he is, but for me he just wasn't nice. Reece is Julia's best friend, but I could see that she was a bit of a so-and-so from the start, I really didn't like her. Reece's true colours are revealed through the book, and some more serious issues are explored by Wright which I felt were really well done. Finally, there is Ciaran who is Reece's current boyfriend and funnily enough, Julia's ex boyfriend too. This actually gives the book quite a good twist and made for interesting reading because you just don't know how the pair of them are going to be with each other next!

Wright's love for travel certainly comes through in this book. Her previous book, The Celebrity Mother, was inspired by a trip Wright made to India, and this really came across when I read the book, and I found this was the case for this book too. Julia actually visit India in this book, and again Wright's passion for it really comes across. We also visit Rome in Italy, Las Vegas and New York in America, and Tokyo in Japan so it really is a great book if you love books that centre around travel. You can tell Wright has really researched the places in the book because she describes them so well, and you can vividly see them in your mind as Julia describes them to us.

Overall, this book is just fantastic, and certainly the perfect read to sit back with on a rainy evening and transport yourself to somewhere hot and sunny for a while! Wright brings these characters to life with her story, and the action is constantly happening so that you are never bored when you are reading this. It actually made me want to pick it up every spare minute I had because I was desperate to find out what was going to happen to Julia and co next. Wright brings the places in this book to life with her vivid writing, and it really was a pleasure to read from start to finish. Even though the cover and theme may not be in keeping with the season, it really doesn't matter because this is one of those books you can read any time of year and devour in just a few sittings, it's fabulous, and highly recommended!

Swimming With Dolphins is a book that will appeal to a lot of people, because who doesn't want to write out a list of 10 things they'd like to do before they die? And that is exactly what Julia finds herself doing when she is made redundant from her job in the City. She writes a list of 10 things she would choose to do should she be dying and sets about fulfilling them all. It ranges from telling someone she loves them, to kissing a girl (and seeing if she likes it, as per the Katy Perry song!), to swimming with dolphins and she embarks on her journey looking to come out of the other end feeling not only fulfilled but hopefully gaining some life experience from it after spending so many years concentrating solely on her career. It's fantastic and I was sucked into the plot immediately.

What I liked best about the book was Julia's hesitance when it came to her list. Because she has spent the past however many years chained to her desk, suddenly zooming off across the world for an adventure isn't exactly what she would have chosen to do, and we're with Julia every step of the way as she sets about doing all these wonderfully crazy things. Along the way, she meets Luke, a bit of a free-spirit and they seem to hit it off, which helps to soothe Julia's heart after being secretly in love with her best friend Reece's boyfriend, not to mention Julia's ex anyway, Ciaran. There's all sorts of mayhem that goes on during the book, as Reece and Ciaran and Luke tag along on Julia's adventure and she makes a new friend in Lesbian Lucy, and it truly was like a whirlwind adventure. Not a page passed without some kind of action and I was totally swept away, wondering where it would all end and, more importantly, who Julia would end up with!

I thought Swimming With Dolphins was written really well, told entirely from Julia's point of view and I thought it was perfect having it written like that. The book takes place in many stunning locations, including Italy, Sicily, India, Las Vegas, New York, and all were written so descriptively that it was as if I was there, alongside Julia as she had her adventure. Honestly, Deborah Wright has managed to transform herself from an author who adds magical aspects to her novels to becoming a very good travel writer, making the destinations her characters visit seem realistic. I applaud her for that, and completely admire how she manages to describe places succinctly (I should know, I'm rubbish at it). I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I truly had no idea how it was going to end. However, I was very satisfied with the ending, and I found it really sweet and it summed up the book perfectly. Despite being released in November (which baffles me, I have to say), it's the perfect Spring or Summer read and Julia's adventure is one you really want to be reading about because it's a corking adventure!