How Do You Spell Love? by Zanna Mackenzie

I would say it could appeal to women who enjoy an escapist romantic read mixed with realism. You could call it chicklit, contemporary romance or a romantic drama with a hint of comedy – it fits all three categories! Matt just happens to be Faith’s first love.Īh, the classic three-way love story. Zane and Faith are both just getting to know each other when Zane’s business partner Matt arrives from Austria and complicates everything.

Faith is nervous about relationships anyway thanks to having her heart broken, add to this the fact Zane is strangely reluctant to talk about his past and naturally she’s a little unsure if she’s doing the right thing by getting involved or not. But I wouldn’t have gotten involved in such a big project if I hadn’t been behind it all the way and it’s now a joy to see it in print.I’ve always been intrigued by the concept in books and films of the first love coming back and complicating life all over again! This happens to Faith in If You Only Knew – she risks getting involved with new-in-town Zane who has taken over the extreme sports centre in the village. I have to admit now that I am slightly biased because I was involved in editing this work. The conversations they have are in fact so realistic, it’s like you’re in the next room listening in. But the main reason that it’s a cut above most chick-lit books (at least for me) is that rather than only being about romance, there’s also a very real sense of the friendship between the two main characters as they help each other through their problems. The magic stuff adds an extra flavour too – it’s really quite interesting, learning about the mystical properties of crystals, lunar calendar traditions, etc, and it’s written with a lot of knowledge and detail. The set-up is simple, the people likeable and we find ourselves returning to the same scenes many times – Summer’s flat, Kat’s house, the charity shop, the allotments and the building site. How Do You Spell Love? by Zanna Mackenzie, however, has but a light sprinkling of humour, so, you may ask, why did this book appeal to me? Well, firstly I’d draw attention to the fact that the novel has a real cosiness about it. The strength of these authors is their light humour, and unlike some other chick-lit books, they don’t try to be knowledgeable about love and heavy on the morals. Books by Jenny Colgan and Sophie Kinsella are particular favourites. Girl meets boy, girl doesn’t like boy because boy is bad, actually he’s not bad after all, girl is falling for boy, girl pursues boy and girl gets boy.

It’s nice to have a break from all that heavy and often depressing literary stuff – with a book in this genre you know what you’re getting.

I pick up the odd chick-lit book now and then.