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Doris Day Vintage Film Club - Fiona Harper - Review

Having read Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams last Christmas I was interested in reading this offering from Fiona Harper.  Gladly I wasn't disappointed,  I do admit it's taken me a while to read this book, not because of the book or writing simply due to life getting in the way of reading time!

Doris Day Vintage Film Club By Fiona Harper
The story follows Travel Agent Claire Bixby, (I admit I felt an affinity due to the name) who plans romantic trips for her clients and works close to the Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams from the previous novel. She is also friends with Peggy from the previous novel who crosses over in to this novel,  filling the same role in this novel as the first.  She's the type of friend everyone would love to have and I enjoyed getting to know her better as she was a nice aside to the main story in both Hopes and Dreams and Doris Day.  I wonder if she will get a break out novel of her own one day.

Claire has had a previous bad relationship which has scared her thoughts and attitude towards love, she also has a history with her father which leads her to be very guarded in love and leads her to believe her choices when in comes to men are flawed and she doesn't trust herself to pick a good guy.  She lives in her Grandmother's old flat above a 'bad' neighbour who irritates her greatly when he's at home.

Dominic or Nic is a documentary film maker who it appears hasn't really settled into any kind of normal life since leaving university.  He has one bad relationship behind him which has put him off settling down thus far.  While his best friend and his wife are his sounding board and reality check when he goes off course.

A war of words, the written kind, is kicked off when Nic returns to his flat and leave his bike dumped in the common hall way, steals his neighbours milk and generally disrupts her well ordered life.  So begins a Pillow Talk style romance.

Claire has a shared love of Doris Day movies with her friends who make up the Doris Day film club, while she spends a lot of time acting as their president and therefore takes on the role of taking care of everyone she doesn't seem to pay as much attention to herself as she does to them.

It appears as much as the characters love Doris so does the writer who neatly weaves the style, film titles and story lines of the movies in to this story.

The writing is light and funny and drags you along tripping and skipping with the main story and the interweaving stories of the secondary characters.

At points it has the opportunity to become quite dark but instead it moves a pace and while it peaks your emotions is does not delve the dark depths too deeply.

All In all it's a fun read with loveable characters that I was sorry to see end.

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