Doubting Abbey by Samantha Tonge

What They Say:

Swapping downstairs for upstairs… How hard can it be!?

Look up the phrase ordinary girl and you’ll see a picture of me, Gemma Goodwin – I only look half-decent after applying the entire contents of my make-up bag, and my dating track-record includes a man who treated me to dinner…at a kebab shop. No joke!

The only extraordinary thing about me is that I look EXACTLY like my BFF, Abbey Croxley. Oh, and that for reasons I can’t explain, I’ve agreed to swap identities and pretend be her to star in the TV show about her aristocratic family’s country estate, Million Dollar Mansion.

So now it’s not just my tan I’m faking – it’s Kate Middleton style demure hemlines and lady-like manners too. And amongst the hundreds of fusty etiquette rules I’m trying to cram into my head, there are two I really must remember; 1) No-one can ever find out that I’m just Gemma, who’d be more at home in the servants quarters. And 2) There can be absolutely no flirting with Abbey’s dishy but buttoned-up cousin, Lord Edward.

Aaargh, this is going to be harder than I thought…

What I Say:

I would like to thank the Carina for approving me to read this on NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I must say I love the cover to this book and it captures it so well.

We first meet Gemma and Abbey just after they have been made redundant form their job at a pizza parlour.  Abbeys estranged Uncle is taking part in a TV show to win a Million Dollars and as asked Abbey to go and help them out.  Abbey wants to go with her boyfriend Zac to help rebuild an orphanage there helpis badly needed.  She persuades Gemma to pretend to be her for 2 weeks and go and stay with her uncle. What could go wrong?  

With the help of Abbeys aunt, Lady C, they turn Gemma into Abbey in a few days (well she does look like Abbey and Abbeys uncle hasn’t seen her since she was 9).  Gemma needs to ditch the false lashes and fake tan to become Abbey.

Gemma is easily likeable even when she does get into some scrapes, she is basically only trying to help her best friend out, as is Lady C, who explains that she had her heart broken by losing the love of her life and she didn’t want that to happen to Abbey.

I laughed when Gemma made mistakes especially the one with the onion,  when she was acting out scenes from moves, with the gardener to make everyone vote for Applebridge Hall. I prayed things would work out for them all and more than anything I wanted them to beat the Baron to win a Million Dollars, especially after his dirty tricks were discovered.

I’m now off to read From Paris with Love.

5 out of 5 stars

About The Author

Samantha lives in Cheshire with her lovely family and two cats who think they are dogs. Along with writing, her days are spent cycling, willing cakes to rise and avoiding housework. A love of fiction developed as a child, when she was known for reading Enid Blyton books in the bath. A desire to write bubbled away in the background whilst she pursued other careers, including a fun stint working at Disneyland Paris. Formally trained as a linguist, Samantha now likes nothing more than holing herself up in the spare room, in front of the keyboard. Writing romantic comedy novels and short stories for women's magazines is her passion. Her bestselling debut novel, "Doubting Abbey", was published by CarinaUK Harlequin in November 2013. Its standalone sequel, From Paris with Love, was released 24th July 2014.

Read this as part of NetGalley month.