These Days of Ours by Juliet Ashton

Kate and Becca are cousins and best friends. They have grown up together and shared all the most important milestones in their lives: childhood birthday parties, eighteenth birthdays, and now a wedding day as they each marry their childhood sweethearts, Charlie and Julian. 

Kate has always loved Charlie - they were meant to be. Then she discovers that life never turns out quite how you expect it to. And love doesn't always follow the journey it should.

But best friends are forever, and true love will find a way, won't it…?

These Days of Ours by Juliet Ashton is a storyline that grows with our main charters from the early years beginning at Kate’s 5^th Birthday Party right up to her 40^th and books like this really appeal to me as I feel like we really get to know the characters well as we watch their personalities grow as they face different life events. The focus of the storyline was the love between Kate and Charlie who were childhood sweethearts who separated in the early years but their lives have always been entwined and their love for each other never truly fizzled out but will true love find a way of reuniting the couple?

Although romance is at the core of this storyline there is also the strong bond between Kate and her cousin Becca who are more like best friends but are polar opposites of each other and I take my hat off to Kate with how much of Becca’s destruction she put up with. The early friendship group between Kate, Charlie, Julian and Becca was my favourite part of the book and where I really felt like we got to know our characters. Looking in on the foursome they really were a mismatch and even at this point I found myself wanting to bash Kate and Charlies head together as it was so obvious they still held a candle for each other and were so perfect for each other too.

I love how each chapter brings us to a new event in the characters’ lives from Birthdays to Weddings and funerals and even Divorce parties so you can tell there was a rollercoaster of emotions throughout this book! This was a clever way to move the story on through different points of their lives. The author managed to pull the wool over my eyes through this book too and when something Becca had done was revealed I was in total shock and wanted to scratch her eyes out!

This was a book that took you on a journey of romance and friendship with its emotional ups and downs that will have you laughing one minute and bringing a lump to your throat the next and I thoroughly enjoyed this modern vibrant read.

This wonderful read is currently at an unbelievable price, only 99p! (at time of posting)

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The Valentines Card by Juliet Ashton

The Valentine's card was meant to be Orla's fairy tale ending, but really, it was only the beginning . . . Orla adores her actor boyfriend, Sim, who's away filming a sumptuous costume drama. Although the long-distance relationship means that she can eat toast for dinner and watch as much reality TV as she likes, she misses him like crazy. But Valentine's Day changes everything . . . The same morning Orla learns that Sim has died, she receives a card from him. As Orla travels from Ireland to London, to live and breathe Sim's final moments, can she bring herself to open the Valentine's card and read his final message?

Being a hopeless romantic, it didn’t take long for me to pick up The Valentine’s Card hoping to lose myself in the storyline.

This book will definitely pull at your heart strings as we watch Orla coming to terms with the death of her partner Sim. The book gets off to a quick start just as Orla gets the news about Sim so it is easy to say you are sympathetic to Orla’s character from the start. I loved the suspense around the Valentines card wondering what was actually going to be written inside and I did wonder if we were ever going to actually find out what was written but it is this that kept me hooked I just had to know what was inside!

I loved the dramatic storyline at the beginning of the book and I was sure this was going to be a fantastic read but I did find the book plummeted a little for me through the middle part of the book when Orla begins to make a life for herself in London. My interest in the book started to slip and I found myself constantly picking up and putting down the book. A few reviewers had messaged me and said they gave up on the book but there was part of me that still felt that a book that started off so good surely had more to give so I kept with it.

I loved the Sim's diary entries which were put in here and there alongside Orla's story we begin to get an idea f the real Sim compared to Orla's view of him.

It did take a while for the book to grip me again but I am glad I did see the book through to the end. There were twists towards the later part of the book which I was very shocked about and this brought the book back up to speed again.  

I would recommend this book as a great Valentine read I would have given it a four star review but I feel because of the part where the book plummeted it is more a 3 and a half star rating.

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