Sunday 21 September 2014

Review ~ One Hundred Proposals by Holly Martin.

Title: One Hundred Proposals.
Author: Holly Martin.
Publisher: Carina UK.
Genre: Chick Lit.
Publication Date: June 25, 2014.
Source: Netgalley.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

Purchase: Amazon UK

‘Is there really such a thing as a perfect proposal?

Over the next hundred days I intend to find out. I will find one hundred ways to propose to our Chief Proposer Suzie McKenzie and post the results here for your enjoyment. One thing’s for sure, not one of my proposals will be on top of the Eiffel Tower with a dozen red roses.’

Best friends Suzie and Harry are partners in romance. That is, they run the.PerfectProposal.com, coming to the aid of would-be grooms to create the ultimate marriage proposal.

But when Harry decides to catapult the business into the big leagues with a PR stunt all Suzie can see is a hundred days of heartbreak stretching ahead of her. But however exotic the location, or breath-takingly romantic the setting, Suzie has to keep remembering that ‘Marry Me?’ is the one question she can’t say yes to.

This business proposal should come with one hundred broken heart warnings...

One hundred proposals, one hundred chances to say yes.







One Hundred Proposals is absolute perfection. I’ve been trying to write this review for a while and that’s pretty much all I can come up with. It was a joy to read and a wonderful story. I’ve read and loved Holly’s previous two books but even then, over the last few months when I’ve seen this book get so many amazing reviews, I did kind of wonder how such a simple concept for a book could be so beautiful and impactful. But any doubts I might have had (though I didn’t, not really) disappeared from about page one. The idea to this book is simple and the characters are ordinary people with no overly-dramatic stories to tell – they travel to normal, yet gorgeous, settings and everything felt natural and believable. But all this combined, and with some sweet little touches too, made One Hundred Proposals an incredible book.

Best friends Harry and Suzie run a proposals website – where they help create the ultimate proposals for their clients. But as Harry decides to gain some more media attention and build their company up, he sets out to find the perfect proposal by planning to propose to Suzie a hundred times until he finds the one. The issue being, of course, that Suzie is secretly in love with Harry and not being able to say yes to his proposals is not an ideal prospect. It really does not matter if you think you know where this book is going because it is stunningly written and Harry and Suzie were two characters I loved instantly.

The story starts straight away – no unnecessary build-up of irrelevant things which have happened in the past, no long wait before we discover the way Suzie feels about her best friend… The book just flows faultlessly from the beginning and it was warm and endearing and truly beautiful to read. I could write about how I fell for Harry way more than is normal for a fictional character but then I imagine so many other reviewers and readers have felt the same thing. His character was written so well – yes he was protective and caring and gorgeous but his personality still felt plausible – he was a typical guy with his cheeky persona and eye for the ladies. It was refreshing for a male character to not be a complete arse and yet not be forced perfection either. As for Suzie, she was very likeable and very easy to relate to. Just a typical girl who is fun and up for a laugh and has feelings – like ones which she has to hide so as not to ruin a great friendship. I loved her character.

I could honestly go on about how amazing this book was all day. You can read a brilliant book and still be completely happy to move on with another but that wasn’t the case for me with One Hundred Proposals. I loved every moment and yet hated that it ended. To state the obvious, there is a lot of proposing in this book and it opened it up to become annoyingly repetitive. It wasn’t. Each moment was special and different and worthwhile. The settings Harry and Suzie travel to were built up so well – Holly looks to have done tons of research when putting this book together and it really pays off. I’ve never travelled and yet I could picture every place – I even fell a little bit in love with Canada because it sounded a wonderful place to be. In fact, Holly’s writing the whole way through was just unreal. I loved how this book was written from Suzie’s perspective yet the blog posts which were written by Harry gave us a fascinating insight into his character too. Like everything else, it was a simple yet such a clever idea too. I didn’t feel like I was simply reading the book – I felt like I was there, watching the story unfold, following their blog and becoming so attached to their story and so desperate for a happy ending.

One Hundred Proposals is a wonderful contemporary romance novel which is uplifting and heart-warming to read but it is still, so much more than that. It was a bit of a tear-jerker as well, learning about Suzie’s brother and the scenes with her sister-in-law had me reading with a lump in my throat and it was truly stunning to read. There are some books that words will never do justice and this is one of them – it has to be read and it’s impossible, I’m sure, to not fall in love with the characters and the settings and the emotions and feelings. I’ve never wanted a book to work out so perfectly like I did here and it’s a rare unforgettable story with characters I don’t want to let go. This book could have carried on for the next six weeks and I would not have tired of it. Flawless.




Review also posted on Goodreads | Amazon UK | Amazon US

5 comments:

  1. Great review. I loved this one too! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much, what a stunning review

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  3. Such an amazing review, well done! I can't wait to read the book now :)

    ReplyDelete

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