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Title/Author

Seeing Stars

Christina Jones

Average Review Rating Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)
Book Details

Publisher : Piatkus Books

Published : 2005

Copyright : Christina Jones 2005

ISBN-10 : HB 0-7499-0744-4
ISBN-13 : HB 978-0-7499-0744-0

Publisher's Write-Up

When city-girl Amber arrives to spend the summer in a small village, the only stars she recognises are the ones she reads about in her glossy celeb magazines. So she is stunned to find herself surrounded by a new neighbours who organise their entire lives around constellation customs and the astral calendar. More scarily, Amber finds that the villagers actually believe that the stars and moon can work magic.

Amber remains loudly sceptical, but as she's grown very fond of her new friends - especially the gorgeously enigmatic Lewis - and assuming that it's all a bit of harmless fun, she hurls herself into the star-ceremonies and moon-myths on the grounds that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em and any excuse for a party. But when, as result of one of Amber's half-hearted celestial incantations, something totally inexplicable happens, she begins to wonder if maybe, just maybe, there's more to magic than meets the eye...

'Bloody good read...Funny, romantic book...a lively romp through rural England.'

New Woman

'Feisty tale of friendship and laughter, loyalty and love...engaging.'

Times

'Sexy...unputdownable...a heart-thumping read.'

Company
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Reader Reviews

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Review by Chrissi (310311) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 8/10
I have been very remiss in reading this and not writing my review, but then again I got to re-read it so that I could write the review, and that is always a pleasure. Once again we enter the bucolic world of Christina Jones, with the villages with fantastic names (being a lover of the whimsical, I neither know nor care whether the names are real places, but I would like to think that they are) and the residents whose idiosyncrasies are just delightful.

On this visit we get to see the village of Fiddlesticks with the eye of an outsider, Amber is a northerner, and when her family decamp to Spain, she goes to stay with Gwyneth, a lifelong friend of her grandmother. Gwyneth lives in a line of cottages with Big Ida and Zillah, who works in the local pub. Gwyneth and Big Ida are lovely and welcoming and after an initially frosty reception from Zillah, Amber starts to settle in. She meets and is offered a part time job with Mitzi at the Hubble Bubble catering company (so lovely to see old friends) and is somewhat flummoxed at the rather strange celestial celebrations that the villagers hold so dear.

Amber, as a non-believer, does make a wish, expressing a general hope that her life may get sorted out. Then as she makes friends, she makes wishes on other starry celebrations to help them, not herself, but things start to resolve in strange ways and Amber in the process of settling herself and getting sorted, finds that first impressions are not always the right ones and that there might be something in the magic after all.

I love that Christina is happy to let us see characters for whom we have great affection, such as Mitzi, and see how their lives are getting on, and I love that she lets us believe just a little bit in magic, the world would be a much nicer place than it is at the moment if there was a little more magic. In fact, seeing as how there is such a surfeit of grottiness at the moment, I think that I might retreat into the world of Christina Jones and bring my reviews up to date. It gives me the excuse to have an attack of the lovely warm and fuzzies to drive away the blue meanies out there and might just make the world seem a bit of a better place.
Chrissi (31st March 2011)

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