Friday book review – Sealed with a Kiss by Rachael Lucas
I first spotted Sealed with a Kiss, Rachael Lucas’s debut novel, when it roared up the Amazon charts last month. Intrigued by its appearance out of nowhere I downloaded it like a flash and settled down to read it.
Rachael self-published the book in February and by the middle of May it had been downloaded more than 60,000 times. All I can say is “wow!” Since then Rachael has been signed by a literary agent and is now hard at work on her next book.
So is Sealed with a Kiss any good? Well yes, actually it is. It’s a short novel (only 64,000 words) but it’s sweet, romantic, funny and highly readable. It also has a convincing heroine, Kate, who, far from being a goody-goody, gets drunk, texts a lot and ends up in bed with an unsuitable piper called Finn.
When Kate is ditched by her boring boyfriend she decides to have a complete change and applies for a job on a remote Scottish island. Her new boss, the laird of the island, turns out to be prickly, demanding and sceptical about her townie ways but after a tricky start Kate finds herself warming to him – and to the island too.
Sealed with a Kiss reminded me a bit of Jilly Cooper’s brilliant first novel, Emily, which is also set on a Scottish island. And in my book you can’t get higher praise than that.
PS. Rachael lives in Southport, a Lancashire seaside resort, with her partner, four children and two stepchildren. She writes a blog called Tales from the Village and loves roller derby so much that she even wears roller skates in the kitchen. My wheels-mad son would definitely approve.