The A-Z Of Girlfriends by Natasha WestThe A-Z Of Girlfriends by Natasha West is a delightful romance with an uncommon quirk. It’s Izzy Mortimer’s wedding day and this book takes you back as she reflects on all her previous girlfriends leading up to this moment.

In this story the road to love is paved with an array of funny, charming and often cringeworthy dating moments that Izzy went through. During flashes to the current day you get the sense that you are meeting Mrs right in the stories from the past but you are never quite sure who she is and West leaves you guessing right until the end.

The Characters

Every relationship in the story is different and lessons learnt are never the same twice. Each girlfriend is unique and there are things to both love and hate about her.

One of the things that struck me was how perfectly Natasha West managed to convey that feeling of true love that one feels at the beginning of a relationship and how that corrodes over time.

The Writing Style

I love West’s writing style. Her use of language is appropriate for the story and characters. There is never too much or too little explaining and her balance of character moments and story events is clear and well done.

The Pros

I loved the uniqueness of this book. This is a story you may have seen in films but I have certainly never read it in lesbian fiction before and I had no idea how much I wanted it until this book.

The Cons

I loved this book and was a little sad to find a couple of typos and formatting errors 🙁

sheena's favouriteThe Conclusion

You should get this book if you want a romantic comedy where the main character finds and loses love until her soulmate comes along. If you enjoy a book that will break your heart then mend it and make you want to laugh out loud then this is the book for you.

And if this doesn’t make you go out and buy a whole load of other Natasha West books then you are nothing like me. I have been on a Natasha West reading binge ever since.

Excerpt from The A-Z Of Girlfriends by Natasha West

Izzy Mortimer was getting married in an hour. Probably.

She was, on the date of her wedding, thirty years old. On the face of it, it was a good age to take the plunge. She wasn’t a knocked up eighteen-year-old, daddy’s shotgun forcing her and her love up the aisle before her waters broke. She was a woman with a career, an almost paid off Vauxhall Astra and a premium Spotify account. So why did she feel like a kid right now? Why did she feel like she was about to take an exam she wasn’t prepared for?

It wasn’t about the woman in question, Izzy’s wife-to-be. Far from it. This wasn’t about how madly in love she was. She would have passed that test with flying colours.

The problem was that she wasn’t really sure whether or not the getting married part was a good idea. Because being in love wasn’t always enough, as Izzy could attest. Being in love did not protect you from a disastrous break-up a few years from now. What if circumstances created a gap between them? What if they grew apart? What if one of them cheated? These things happened, as well Izzy knew from every other relationship that had gone disastrously wrong. The big difference was if this relationship didn’t work out she wouldn’t just get dumped, she’d be a divorcee. A divorcee. Who would want that title? No one. Her parents had fought tooth and nail to avoid that result and they’d arrived in different cars today anyway, driven from different houses, where they’d woken up with different people.

So what were the odds she’d make it? How likely was it that – with romantic dysfunction in her blood – she’d come up smiling?

This was the whole problem. She felt ill prepared. How could she walk down the aisle in an hour and get married to the love of her life knowing that, in all probability, she didn’t have the emotional toolkit to make it work?

Izzy felt her heart beating loud and fast as she looked at herself in the full-length mirror of her hotel room, which sat on top of the ballroom she was going to get married in. Her dark blonde hair was pinned in a princess braid, her face made up nicely, and she was wearing a white gown. She knew it took some nerve to wear that colour today – she wasn’t exactly a snow-white virgin – but white meant fresh and Izzy wanted that. A new start. If she could just get herself downstairs in a fit state to say, ‘I do.’ That started with a normal heartbeat. She took a deep breath and clutched a hand to her chest, telling the errant organ to calm the fuck down.

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