Angela Clarke is happy living in New York and has settled in well after moving from England. She has a good job working for a magazine and writing a blog, she also has a very hot boyfriend, Alex who is the singer in a band. Angela is having a good time with her life but she is not happy with the weather as it is so cold in New York. She gets a break though when her Boss asks her to go to Hollywood and interview a top actor, James Jacob who is also a Brit.
Angela has a hard decision to make about the interview as she has never interviewed anyone before, let alone someone as famous as James. She also does not want to leave her boyfriend as they have only recently got back together again and she hates to be apart form him. Angela does make the decision to go and her best friend Jenny goes with her.
After arriving in Hollywood where the weather is amazing and so is the scenery she sets about making her interview one of the best pieces she has ever written. Things start to go wrong though when Angela meets James and discovers that he is not the ladies man she was lead to believe but a very nice pleasant and extremely good looking man. James start to flirt with Angela which does not help the feelings she is having for him. Can Angela get past her feelings and make the interview her best yet and will her relationship with Alex survive the separation?
I have only given a very brief outline of the plot for this book but do not think it this basic as there is so much more happening in the book but I just don not want to spoil it for those who have not read this one. I have read one of the I heart books before and thoroughly enjoyed it so had no problems with starting to read this one. The problem I had was I read the I heart Paris book first which is the book written after this one so I had an idea of where the story was going and what was going to happen but I managed not to let this put me off and I really managed to enjoy the book. The story is great and despite being about film stars and Hollywood it is quite down to Earth and very believable.
The character of Angela is a good one and she is so easy to get to know and understand. She has normal problems which we all face and I thought these made her so much more down to earth and normal. She came across as a little bit dopey at times with some of the daft things she did and the scrapes she got herself into but for me it just made the story much more entertaining to read. I found the friendship she had with jenny to be great and totally believable and I loved how close they were and spoke the truth to each other. Jenny was another good character and I found her to be so much stronger and independent to Angela and the contrast worked well.
We had some other very good characters in the story and the main ones were Alex and James. They were completely different from each other, Alex was quite and just got on with his life and James was a world famous actor and I think the difference between them is what made them both very appealing. The inclusion of Angela’s Mom and Dad was also nice as it meant we got a little background detail about her and got to know a little about her past and why she thought and acted as she did.
The book is set in Hollywood and we get a lot of detail about the City and the places visited by Angela and I found that the details we got meant I was able to easily get a good mental picture of the characters and settings. I always enjoy this in a book as it means I find it easier to follow and get into.
There is a good mix of humour and sorrow in the book, Angela has a hard time and this is explained well and given just the right amount of heart ache but there is always some funny snippet which comes out which brings the book back to the light hearted read it is meant to be. I did at times feel so sorry for Angela but then there were others when I just wanted to shake her and tell her to get on with things and I like the way I got so attached to the story and characters.
The writing style is good and means that it is very easy to read and enjoy. It is not a deep or heavy story so this for me makes an excellent bedtime read. I found the details were just enough to help me follow and keep a good mental picture but not overly detailed so got bored at any point. The story moves at a good pace from start to finish and there were no times when I felt it was dragging on.
The version of the book which I have is the paper back edition and this was published by Harper Collins and has a retail price of £6.99. It is well worth this price tag but do shop around as I managed to et this for just £2 in a small book shop when on holiday. There are other books in the I Heart series and they too are well worth reading. They don’t really need reading in order as this is a good stand alone book.
I am happy to give this book the full 5 stars as it thoroughly entertained me from start to finish. The characters are good and easy to get to know and the story is not taxing and easy to read. The mix of emotions included just adds to the read experience. I highly recommend this book.
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