The Longest Holiday by Paige Toon

If you've never read a Paige Toon book, then firstly where the bleep have you been hiding and secondly get yourself to your nearest book shop or download immediately to your reading device from Amazon!  You might think blimey what is she on? But honestly I wouldn't be doing my job as a book reviewer if I didn't urge you to read one if not all of Paige's books, because you will become addicted. She is not your average 'chick lit' author, she has an uncanny ability to write compelling, believable characters that you want to be your friends and boyfriends.  I've collected a few myself from her novels over the years, for example, Nathan from her very first novel 'Lucy in the Sky' and Luis from 'Chasing Daisy'.

There are a couple of things that I enjoy immensely about Paige's books and besides the aforementioned believability of her characters, she also inter-links them between her books, so here she re-introduces us to Laura, Will's girlfriend from 'Chasing Daisy and introduces us to Leo in the 'Longest Holiday'. When we first met Laura in her previous guise, I didn't like her very much, she seemed snooty and a bit wet.  But that was probably because I was rooting for that novel's heroine.  In this book, Paige's sixth full length novel, we meet Laura again, seven months into having married the  so-called man of her dreams.  But one day she stumbles across her husband Matthew's open Facebook page and finds out that he had sex in the toilets of a nightclub on his stag do, a week before their wedding.  And now the girl he cheated with is pregnant! Like any self-respecting woman Laura packs her bags and goes on holiday to Florida with her best friend Marty, who tries to take her mind off her situation at home with cocktails and fun.  Soon she finds the ultimate distraction in Sexy Cuban Scuba Dive Master Leo, to whom she falls head over heels in lust then love with. At the end of the holiday Laura doesn't want to go home, but as I'm not one to spoil plots I'll leave it at that. 

The back drop of the Florida Keys is described beautifully, and transports you effortlessly to Leo's world, which is another one of Paige's strengths.  She herself has travelled the world with her father who was a racing car driver, and has lived in America, Australia and England over the years.  She is now settled in Cambridge with her own family writing her brilliant novels having graduated from my other favourite guilty pleasure 'Heat magazine'.

The Longest Holiday is another must read from Paige Toon and if you want fun, frolicks and most of all a beautifully written love story, go get yourself a copy now, you won't regret it!