Stevie was a young woman who took life very seriously indeed: wouldn't drink coffee if it came from a chain, would never buy a card on Valentine's day. Why would she, of all people, be sent to spend a week with a film star? Why would she, of all people, fall in love with him? Why would she, of all people, get involved in the fame game? Why would she, of all people, send him a Valentine? A Valentine that blows it all apart. Funny Valentine.
'Honey has doubts about her nice suitable man, she has doubts about commitment. And she still carries a torch for the man she calls the Love Of Her Life. Alex, someone she spent only one night with, seven years ago now. A perfect night. A night that makes her soul glow when she tells the story. A soul mate night.'Seven years on, with the memory of THAT night relegated to the realms of pure fantasy, Honey marries Ed, her nice suitable man, and unbeknown to her on the other side of the Atlantic, Alex marries another woman.As fate would have it, Honey and Alex do meet again. But what happens if they meet completely by coincidence, on a balcony in New York - even if they are both on their respective honeymoons
Like her spiritual sister, Bridget Jones, Honey is a single Londoner with a taste for unattainable men, funky outfits, and a self-deprecating sense of humor. Unlike B.J., however, Honey's saga of self-realization starts off with her engagement to a wonderfully sweet and likeable fiancé, Ed. On her "hen night," the British version of a bachelorette party, her girlfriends ask her to retell the story of the night she met the love of her life, and Honey begins to describe her first meeting with a man who is definitely not Ed.<p> Actually, the love of her life happens to be a Hollywood film-writer named Alex who she met in a restaurant seven years earlier. After a perfect night of soul-mating, a dash to the airport, and a postal strike, Alex was never heard from again, leaving Honey just enough rope to hang herself on <i>what if</i>s until Ed came along. Now, with the wedding plans rolling, Alex surfaces again, and Honey struggles to match fantasy and reality and find the true love of her life.</p><p> Though <i>Honeymoon</i> can feel distastefully coy in its moments of self-consciously produced stream-of-thought sequences, author Amy Jenkins mixes in enough humor and romantic suspense to make the reader swallow it. Honey is entertaining, if not always likeable, and the cast of eccentric friends will make you smile as you flip through the pages as fast as your fingers allow. <i>--Nancy R.E. O'Brien</i></p>