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Surprise Me: The Sunday Times Number One bestseller

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Tentery: that taut, defensive way he behaves whenever the subject of my father comes up in conversation. (He thinks I don’t notice.)

To sum it all up it was an engaging, fun, moving, fast-paced, and an enjoyable read that surprised me, made me laugh and had an ending that made me smile! Would recommend! Didn't get any sense that Dan loved Sylvie, it was like he was with her out of familiarity, there weren't really any strong feelings towards Sylvie, he just acted bored and like he was simply going through the motions.

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They find out that they could potentially have 68 more blissful years together! They are both in excellent health and should expect long lives. Wait....this produces some "anxiety" for the couple. Can they really spend that many years and stay happy? This is when the surprise me plan is concocted and set in motion! And you’ll never see Dan doing Christmas shopping. He has no interest in presents, and his birthday becomes an actual tussle. (Me: ‘You must want something. Think.’ Dan (hunted): ‘Get me… er… I think we’re out of pesto. Get me a jar of that.’ Me: ‘A jar of pesto? For your birthday?’) Was I surprised about how much I enjoyed Sophie Kinsella's new novel Surprise Me? Not at all. I expected it to be an entertaining read and it absolutely was. When it comes to Sophie Kinsella, the only surprise for me is that I haven't joined the millions of readers who love the Shopaholic series. I can't seem to get into them and yet when it comes to her stand alone titles I'm an avid fan. Love. Them. So, when this title showed up I couldn't wait to start it. And once I started I couldn't stop till I'd finished.

In his defence (he says now) he was getting over another relationship, and wasn’t really ‘out there’. She surprised me with the finishing. Though I had an uncertainty concerning where it may go, I really did not see it featuring all. Yet kid oh boy, was it ever pleasing!

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Dan was a terrible husband, all he did was lie to Sylvia non-stop for years, even when she asked him direct questions about what was going on and he could clearly see how distraught and worried she was he still lied to her. And then he had the nerve to take out his moods on her when the secret became too overwhelming. He didn't even feel guilty about constantly lying to her and keeping things from her, nope, he was only concerned about how much pressure he was under, and not about how hurt and upset Sylvie was about his suspicious behaviour. There was nothing stopping him from actually telling her the truth instead of concocting lie after lie and in the meantime making her paranoid and depressed. And his excuse about not telling her was weak, as well as insulting - he thought she couldn't handle the truth because a couple of years ago she was upset and angry when her father died, like any person would have been in her shoes. I mean, WTF?! How else was she meant to grieve? Her grief wasn't anything out of the ordinary but Dan and her mother made out as if her reaction to her dad's death was abnormal, when it was actually a normal amount of grief and upset. And at the end he didn't even apologise for lying about something so huge for years, nope, he was made out to be the good guy. She should have seriously thought about leaving him, if he could lie for so long without any hesitation once then he could do it again. Try as I may, I cannot possibly relay just how truly moving the ending is. All I’ll say is: try to finish reading the book in private. You are very likely to get extremely sentimental. Those surprises initially turn out to be fun, silly things that often made one laugh. However, the surprises soon turn out to be more serious and as the story continues, a scandal makes them realize that what they thought they knew about one another might just be an illusion. A musical adaptation of Kinsella's novel 'Sleeping Arrangements' by Chris Burgess was premiered on 17 April 2013 in London at the Landor Theatre.

Thank you to Sophie Kinsella, the publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this novel. Sylvie and Dan have a happy marriage, and when they find out from their doctor that they are healthy and are likely to live close to 70 more years together, they each have a different response! They come together and decide to keep their marriage fresh with lots of fun and quirky surprises. The second half of the book took a more serious tone for Dan and Sylvie, but I enjoyed the way it wrapped up. Thank you to the following for permitting me access to an advance reader's copy (ARC) of Surprise Me. This generosity did not impact my honesty when rating/reviewing. Sylvie and Dan are just hitting their ten year anniversary from the time that they first met when they get the news they just may have sixty eight more years of marriage. After a bit of a freak out the couple wonders how they will keep their marriage fresh and exciting for such a long time and decides to begin surprising each other to shake things up.For a time, this does seem like a frothy novel about keeping the spark alive in marriage before it becomes a deeper look at relationships between family, husbands and wives, work, and yourself. It’s when this novel goes deeper that I really enjoyed it. One of the funniest scenes in Surprise Me would probably also appear very familiar to many. In this day and age, we often rely on technology for answers to everything. Many of us tend to think that by Googling something or watching a few videos on YouTube we can become experts on any subject, even the ones that take years to master. You have to read the book to find out what happened when Tilda – a Google-taught brand new photography whizz – decided to help out Sylvie with a free professional photo-shoot. Thought provoking

SOPHIE KINSELLA has always been one of my favourite go-to authors, so I was pretty excited when I was approved to read her latest novel, SURPRISE ME. I have enjoyed all of her books and to me they are such a treat to read inbetween reading so many thrillers. I like to be able to just relax and enjoy the humour within the storyline. SURPRISE ME definitely surprised me and I kind of liked the idea of Project Surprise Me too except for one of the surprises that Dan gave to Sylvie in the book which had me totally creeped right out! AS Dr Seuss once said “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” The funny thing is, I’d never have thought ‘ability to flip burgers’ would have been on the list of attributes I was looking for in a man. But there you go. Sophie’s latest novel, Surprise Me, published in February 2018, presents a humorous yet moving portrait of a marriage—its intricacies, comforts, and complications. Surprise Me reveals that hidden layers in a close relationship are often yet to be discovered.The prologue is a tease about Sylvie finding out some terrible secret about her husband, Dan. The first chapter starts with "Five weeks earlier". At the halfway point we've consumed two of those weeks and I'm alternating between frustration and boredom. I get it already: Sylvie and Dan have a surface bonhomie that buries some serious fissures with their lives.

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