We're celebrating today with another book birthday...well, a slightly belated one. Today's book hit the shelves yesterday and slides into a direction I don't hit very often. Romance! This is an off-shoot book from the author's bestseller, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. Of course, I didn't read this first book (because I rarely do that) and just hit this book with fresh eyes. It circles around a British girl, Florida and a hurricane...or that's what I'm getting from the cover and blurb.
Ready to see if this one blows the reader away?
A BRITISH GIRL'S GUIDE TO HURRICANES AND HEARTBREAK
by Laura Taylor Namey
Atheneum Books
YA Romance
320 pages
In this highly anticipated companion to the New York Times bestseller A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, Flora Maxwell heads to Miami to find a path for her future… and finds her heart along the way.
Winchester, England, has always been home for Flora, but when her mother dies after a long illness, Flora feels untethered. Her family expects her to apply to university and take a larger role in their tea-shop business, but Flora isn’t so sure. More than ever, she’s the chaotic “hurricane” in her household, and she doesn’t always know how to manage her stormy emotions.
So she decides to escape to Miami without telling anyone—especially her longtime friend Gordon Wallace.
But Flora’s tropical change of scenery doesn’t cast away her self-doubt. When it comes to university, she has no idea which passions she should follow. That’s also true in romance. Flora’s summer abroad lands her in the flashbulb world of teen influencer Baz Marín, a Miami Cuban who shares her love for photography. But Flora’s more conflicted than ever when she begins to see future architect Gordon in a new light.
Laura Taylor Namey’s newest novel navigates heartbreak that feels like a hurricane in a city that is famous for them.
Winchester, England, has always been home for Flora, but when her mother dies after a long illness, Flora feels untethered. Her family expects her to apply to university and take a larger role in their tea-shop business, but Flora isn’t so sure. More than ever, she’s the chaotic “hurricane” in her household, and she doesn’t always know how to manage her stormy emotions.
So she decides to escape to Miami without telling anyone—especially her longtime friend Gordon Wallace.
But Flora’s tropical change of scenery doesn’t cast away her self-doubt. When it comes to university, she has no idea which passions she should follow. That’s also true in romance. Flora’s summer abroad lands her in the flashbulb world of teen influencer Baz Marín, a Miami Cuban who shares her love for photography. But Flora’s more conflicted than ever when she begins to see future architect Gordon in a new light.
Laura Taylor Namey’s newest novel navigates heartbreak that feels like a hurricane in a city that is famous for them.
MY TIDBITS
With times of brewing storms, chaos, and peaceful breezes, this romance grabs and promises an ending with a satisfied sigh.
Flora's life is like a hurricane. After her mother's death, she knows she doesn't deserve anything good in her life for years to come, but that's only the beginning of her troubles. She needs to figure out what to do with college, how to swerve around her father, and what to do with the problem of her best friend taking off to study architecture abroad. It doesn't help that her own temper blasts with the power of a devastating storm. So, she does what any catastrophe would do—she takes off across the ocean without a word. The escape to Florida lands her in a different environment, but the winds don't die down. Now, she's dealing with a new love interest, fake dating, and so much more.
Romance fans are going to sink into this one and enjoy. The main character, Flora, is a force to be reckoned with and completely lost, when it comes to her own goals. Those ran into chaos with the death of her mother. Her emotional wounds are extremely clear, and her energy is addicting. It's fun just to watch her learn to handle life around her because there's no doubt that she's going to be a powerful force when she does get things figured out. The characters around her pack just as much personality, which really makes each scene and interaction a treat...and a bit unpredictable.
There is a nice balance between humor, serious emotions, and the unexpected throughout the tale. While I'm not a huge fan of more serious, internal conflicts with thought and contemplation, this read handles these with finesse. They are definitely present but roll with the rest of the plot to make sure boredom stays at bay. Plus, the life lessons Flora faces are easy to relate to and her reactions, even if extreme at times, understandable.
This is a fun read with tons of heart. There are the misunderstandings and insecurities that young adult literature tends to bring with it, but these are met with enough maturity to keep it from becoming cliche. It's a read to sit back and enjoy, and one I do recommend.
And here she is...
Laura Taylor Namey is the New York Times bestselling author of A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, a Reese Witherspoon YA Book Club pick, as well as A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak, When We Were Them, and The Library of Lost Things. A proud Cuban American, she can be found hunting for vintage treasures and wishing she was in London or Paris. She lives in San Diego with her husband and two children.
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