The Summer of Chasing Dreams by Holly Martin – Book Review

A Huge thanks to Holly Martin for an advanced copy of this wonderful book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

Purchase the book here 

Synopsis

Eva is quite content with her life in London. In her job as a cover designer, she works at home, and often in her cosy pyjamas. She’s happy to stay in her safe little world and not explore much outside of it.

She is the opposite of her mum, a free spirit who craved finding adventure and thrills in all corners of the world. But on the day her mum’s will is finalised, Eva finds a list of all the dreams her mum wanted to achieve in her life. Things she never did because she fell pregnant with Eva.

Eva decides these dreams will not go unfulfilled — she is going to be brave and complete them for her mum. As Eva has no experience travelling the world, she hires a guide to go with her on this holiday.

Gorgeous but rude Thor Anderson is not the person she would choose to accompany her on this journey, but somehow she gets stuck with him. As they discover the world together Eva starts to think he might not be as bad as she first thought. She is swept away by Thor’s kindness and mischievous sense of humour. But will it be a simple holiday romance or could this wonderful adventure lead to so much more?

If you enjoy reading Sarah Morgan, Miranda Dickinson and Jill Mansell, this book is for you.

My Thoughts

When Eva is clearing out her late mother’s house she comes across a box filled with unfulfilled dreams her mother had written as a young adult.  Eva has lived a fairly quiet life by comparison and she decides to use her inheritance to pay for the trip of a lifetime and use the opportunity to fulfil her mother’s dreams.

Being sensible and cautious, Eva books her trip using a company that provide tour escorts.  Unfortunately her chosen escort is unable to accompany her and she is lumbered with the seemingly arrogant Thor instead.  As the journey goes on, she realises there’s so much more to Thor than she first thought and is becoming more and more attracted to him as the journey goes on.

I’m a sucker for a location romance and this one doesn’t disappoint.  I adored travelling to all the locations with Eva and Thor.  Some of them I have been to and I was swept away in my own memories, and others I have never visited but all sound amazing.  Holly Martin describes the locations with passion and beauty, making me want to pop of to the local travel agents and book a holiday on the spot.

Eva and Thor are just delightful characters and I want to be best friends with them both.  Each chapter sees Eva cross something off both her mother’s and her own list and develops an unknown, braver side to herself that she hadn’t realised existed.  Despite starting off seeming arrogant and cocky, Thor soon shows that he is none of these things and I defy you not to fall in love with him.

This is such a light-hearted but fabulous story of romance, adventure and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.  It’s the perfect summer read.

 

Author Bio – Holly Martin

Holly lives in a little white cottage by the sea. She studied media at university which led to a very glitzy career as a hotel receptionist followed by a even more glamorous two years working in a bank. The moment that one of her colleagues received the much coveted carriage clock for fifteen years’ service was the moment when she knew she had to escape. She quit her job and returned to university to train to be a teacher. Three years later, she emerged wide eyed and terrified that she now had responsibility for the development of thirty young minds. She taught for four years and then escaped the classroom to teach history workshops, dressing up as a Viking one day and an Egyptian High Priestess the next. But the long journeys around the UK and many hours sat on the M25 gave her a lot of time to plan out her stories and she now writes full time, doing what she loves.

Holly has been writing for 8 years. She was shortlisted for the New Talent Award at the Festival of Romance. Her short story won the Sunlounger competition and was published in the Sunlounger anthology. She won the Carina Valentine’s competition at the Festival of Romance 2013 with her novel The Guestbook. She was shortlisted for Best Romantic Read, Best eBook and Innovation in Romantic Fiction at the Festival of Romance 2014. She is the bestselling author of 18 books