Welcome to My World [Paperback]

I was sucked into Welcome To My World immediately as the full extent of Harri's problems isn't immediately told to us. All we know from the first paragraph is that Harri is not the type of person to lock herself in a toilet, yet that is where she finds herself. We then travel back to the fateful day that sets the night in question in motion and from then on, at the beginning of each chapter we get a snippet about Harri's present situation before diving back into how it all came that Harri found herself locked in a toilet stall. I thought it was such a clever way of writing the novel as it really built up the suspense over why exactly Harri had seen fit to lock herself in a toilet. I'm not the most patient person in the world, and used to have a habit of skipping to the back of the novel to learn how it all ends, and you have no idea how desperate I was to do the same with Welcome To My World. However, I kept my patience in check and was handsomely rewarded come the end of the novel.

But what Miranda really excells at, is that she manages to make her characters so real and she connects us to them so well. I fell in love with Harri from the first line, and she's such a wonderful character that I truly hoped the story would end well for her. The fact that she's a travel agent who has never actually travelled made me feel so sad. I wasn't entirely convinced by Rob, Harri's boyfriend, because he worked away a lot we barely get to see him, and I admit he did seem nice at first but I always had a few doubts about him. The main man for me, though, was the lovely lovely Alex. I loved how he fed Harri's travelling addiction, and I loved how easy-going their relationship was. For me, that was my favourite part of the novel. Alex's mum Viv is a prominent character and really sparkled and Harri's best friend Stella and Aunt Rosemary (who you may recognise from Fairytale of New York as she's Rosie's mum!) add to the cast nicely.

I must admit, I did worry that Welcome To My World wouldn't live up to my expectations, and wouldn't match the fantasticness that was Fairytale of New York but I am very happy to announce that I was wrong. Welcome To My World was just as good as Fairytale of New York. It's true, there's not a lot going action-wise, but for me, I read Miranda's books for the story, for the unravelling of the plot, not for cliched action scenes that appear in a lot of Chick Lit novels. Miranda has a very distinct writing style, and a distinct way of telling a story and for me it's a huge hit. You have no idea how sad I am to have finished the novel as it means a wait of another 12 months before Miranda's next one It Started With A Kiss, but believe me, it will definitely be worth the wait.

Love it. Can't wait for her third. Where does she get her ideas from? What an imagination. Don't normally read books like this but as she's locally born I dug in and read her first book and got hooked. This book is as good as first. Well done Miranda.

I'll be honest, I didn't love this author's first book and I only bought this because it was ridiculously cheap at the time. I am a massive fan of this genre, so I knew what to expect when I started this, and I like to think I'm not overly picky when it comes to this genre- but I did find this a bit dull and overly predicable. I can't really put my finger on what it was I disliked about this book- on paper it sounds pretty great- but it was just nothing special and instantly forgettable. It's a shame really- I would have liked to have seen that this author had developed a bit from her debut. Unfortunately she hasn't- if you've read her first book and like me you thought it was a bit so so then don't bother with this one as you end up with the same feeling after this one too. On the other hand, if you're a fan of this genre and have never tried anything by this author before then you may as well give it a go if it's still selling at the same price as a bar of chocolate. I've certainly read a lot worse in the cheap price bracket on my kindle than this. If the price has gone back up to something resembling a bookshop RRP though then I definitely wouldn't bother- there's plenty of other great stuff in this genre available on kindle to choose from. I feel like this author could write something great in the chick lit genre, but just hasn't quite managed it yet, so I'll probably still keep my eye out for her future work in the hope she improves with practice.