Pillow Talk by Freya North review/giveaway

This week on Royal Reviews it’s Reviews Choice, so stop by and see what caught our Reviewers fancy. Who knows, maybe you will find your next addition to your TBR pile!



Title: Pillow Talk
Author: Freya North
ISBN: 978-1-4022-5446-8
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Release Date: July 2011
Format: Trade Paperback
$14.99 US
Pages: 464
How I read it: Mass Market Paperback Arc from the Publishers
Rating: 5 Crowns A ROYAL READ

By day Petra Flint is a talented jeweler working in a lively London studio. By night, she’s a sleepwalker trouble by a past she can’t put to bed and a present that leaves her clinging to an unsuitable boyfriend.

Arlo Savidge was once a budding heartthrob musician. Then tragedy struck and he chose to forsake stardom and all future affairs of the heart for a quite life in the countryside as a music teacher.

Peter and Arlo haven’t seen each other since they were teenagers--when their feelings ran deep but the timing wasn’t right. Now, seventeen years later, they run into each other once more. Might first love get a second chance--or will what keeps them up at night keep them apart forever?
(from the back of the arc)


My Thoughts:

A young love that was never approached now gets a second chance in Freya North’s new novel, PILLOW TALK. I loved the concept of this book; it is one of those topics most of us can relate to. Almost everyone has that one person who they let slip away, the one your thoughts randomly drift to. Although very few have that person walk back into their lives. In PILLOW TALK that is exactly what happens, although they now have to contend with what happened in those seventeen years that they were apart.

The Characters:

Petra Flint- I liked Petra from the start. She comes across as a likable character, and one that you want to know more about. She was also a relatable character, although that could be for the fact that I too am a sleepwalker. Nothing as horrid as Petra’s sleeping walking fiascos mind you, but I do some odd things indeed.

She seems to be trapped in a troubled relationship with Robe. While he may be a big shot businessman, the only word I find suitable to describe Rob would have to be tosser. He made my skin crawl and I desperately wanted Petra to kick him to the curb. Thankfully, her eyes are opened early on. In the midst of Petra and Rob’s relationship problems, she hears a song on the radio that makes her heart flutter. While the voice is not that of Arlo, the song was his and the memories come flooding back of a teenage Arlo singing just to her. After an encounter with Rob, Petra borrows a friend’s cottage in Yorkshire. It never crossed her mind that she would encounter Arlo.
.

Arlo Savidge- Arlo seems to be living the life of a monk, paying penance for something that happened in his past. Having set aside his music, he now teaches at Roseberry Hall, a private school nestled in Yorkshire moors. While he seems content in the countryside, he seems to just be existing rather than living. And it seems he too is thinking about that young girl he sang to all those years ago. Yet he is troubled, and that has led him to become an insomniac.


Both Petra and Arlo have an air of silent misery about them and it seems that fate is desperately trying to put the two in the same path. And I have to say thank goodness for that chocolate bunny. Maybe Cupid was masquerading as the Easter Bunny giving the two a bit of a nudge. Unfortunately, their road to happiness is a bit bumpy and it will take a bit of navigation to guide them safely to the other side.


I also liked Mrs. McNeil, when Petra’s home life became unstable, she was there as a sort of a mother/grandmother figure when she needed her the most.

The Plot:

The plot was brilliant. Well paced and well developed, I loved the way they used flashback scenes to round out the story. The only problem I had with the novel was that I wanted more. I want to know what happens after that last chapter, then again, that is what a good book does, and it draws you and makes you crave more.

Overall: While this book is deemed chick lit, it’s not all bunnies and bows. It has depth and meaning laced with light and laughter. A truly enjoyable read that will leave you thinking about the characters long after the last word has been read.

GIVEAWAY!

As my book club selected “PILLOW TALK” as its book for August, I picked up and extra copy for a Royal Giveaway.

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Contest ends August 16, 2011






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