Wednesday 1 July 2015

Jo's Review and Guest Post - Summer at Tiffany's By Karen Swan





What They Say:

A wedding to plan. A wedding to stop. What could go wrong?

Cassie loves Henry. Henry loves Cassie. With a Tiffany ring on her finger, all that Cassie has left to do is plan the wedding. It should be so simple but when Henry pushes for a date, Cassie pulls back.

Henry's wild, young cousin, Gem, has no such hesitations and is racing to the aisle at a sprint, determined to marry in the Cornish church where her parents were wed. But the family is set against it, and Cassie resolves to stop the wedding from going ahead.

When Henry lands an expedition sailing the Pacific for the summer, Cassie decamps to Cornwall, hoping to find the peace of mind she needs to move forwards. But in the dunes and coves of the northern Cornish coast, she soon discovers the past isn't finished with her yet . . .

What I Say:

I would like to thank the publicist Katie James for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for a fair an honest review.

We first met Cassie and Henry in Christmas at Tiffany's and I couldn't wait to read this follow up book. Cassie and Henry are now engage and I wasn't sure where Karen would go with this book, as with all books the course to happiness never does run smoothly but in this case it didn't come in from usual source.

We also get to see some familiar characters from the previous books along with a string of dilemmas. When Henry's cousin Gem turns and is determined to have a whirl wind wedding Cassie begins to question her own feelings. Unlike other reviews I wouldn't say that this book is depressing just that it wasn't quite the light hearted summer read I was expecting it to be.

4 Out of 5 Stars


About The Author:

Karen Swan began her career in fashion journalism before giving it all up to raise her three children and an ADHD puppy, and to pursue her ambition of becoming a writer. She lives in the forest in Sussex, writing her books in a treehouse overlooking the Downs.


Guest Post by Karen Swan

Why I love Tiffany’s and decided to write two novels with it in the Title.


Tiffany’s was such a powerful metaphor in the first book, Christmas At Tiffany’s. The enduring legacy of the Audrey Hepburn film ‘Breakfast At….’ is that it’s become synonymous with New York and more specifically, that slick, sophisticated Manhattan lifestyle that Cassie’s trying to buy into. It represents everything she isn’t (at the start of the book) and I deliberately used a gift from there to chart her ascent as a social swan – the Christmas present given in New York is then left stranded in Paris, before she is reunited  with an important part of it in London (well, strictly speaking, Gloucestershire for that scene!) At each stage of her journey, the Tiffany gift shadows her as though marking her progress and of course, she is rewarded with a glittering prize in one of the famous blue boxes in the final scene.

The brand plays more of a symbolic ‘stabilizing’ role for Cassie in the sequel, Summer At Tiffany’s (not least because most of the action is based in Cornwall and Tiffany’s doesn’t have a boutique there). The one scene in the Sloane Street store is the reader’s first clue as to the depths of Cassie’s dilemma and as the story develops, her Tiffany ring becomes emblematic, proof of what she already has - and what she still wants, surely? It was no coincidence that I chose the Cartier love bangle as a counterpoint to the ring – something modern and urban, versus something traditional and timeless. She’s being offered two completely different lives and the jewelry epitomizes each choice.

But I don’t want to get too highbrow about all this. I should add here that the book is also a crucial second chance for my husband to pick up on all those clues he missed in the first story. I’ve written two books now about Tiffany’s - just buy me something in the god damned blue box, darling!






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