Things Are Looking Up: An uplifting, heartwarming romance from Maxine Morrey

· Boldwood Books Ltd
3.7
7 reviews
Ebook
363
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

A page-turning, heart-warming romance, guaranteed to brighten up your day from the award-winning top 50 bestseller, Maxine Morrey

Perfect for fans of Lauren Weisberger and Sophie Kinsella.

Milly has been waiting for this moment forever and finally it’s just an hour away – an interview with Vogue magazine and the opportunity to get her foot in the door. There’s just one problem – totally engrossed in her mobile phone, Milly doesn’t see the bus that is fast approaching – until it’s too late...

When Milly next opens her eyes, the consequences of her accident become clear. Everything she has worked for and dreamed of suddenly feels out of reach. But there is one bright spot on her horizon – the reappearance of her ex Jed, in all of his six-foot-four, broad-shouldered glory, with the most piercing ice blue eyes Milly ever saw.

Once used to working in a whirlwind, Milly now has the chance to reconsider how to live. Will she rush back to the treadmill, get her head down and back to business, or is there a whole other life waiting for her, if she’ll just look up to see it?

Praise for Maxine Morrey:

'I absolutely love Maxine’s books - it’s so much fun to be in her world.' Portia Macintosh

'An uplifting read that stops you in your tracks and makes you wonder "...but what if?" Absorbing, funny and oh-so-romantic, I loved every page!' Rachel Burton

'A super sweet read, guaranteed to warm any winter evening' Samantha Tonge

'A lovely story that kept me turning the pages' Jules Wake

‘A stunning, perfect novel – it literally took my breath away.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Writing Garnet

‘A warm hug of a book.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rachel’s Random Reads

Ratings and reviews

3.7
7 reviews
Grace J. Reviewerlady
May 25, 2021
A fabulous up-to-date novel about life, love and mistakes made along the way. Milly has worked long and hard for her dream job, committing herself 24/7 to her career and, finally, she is on the verge of achieving success – a position at Vogue magazine. Then they change the time of her interview and she has her head down, focusing on her mobile phone and misses the bus bearing down on her. When she next opens her eyes, the reality of her situation comes crashing down; she has lost everything she’s worked for and her life has imploded. Then her ex, Jed, re-enters her life and as she convalesces, Milly wonders if she can work her way back to where she was or, then again, if life has more to offer? This is a touching read from an author with a good insight into the life of a modern woman. Milly is easy to identify with; we’ve all known someone who commits everything to their career to the detriment of everything else in life. I admired Milly – she’s a very loveable character but not without her flaws – well, let’s face it, few of us are! This is a lovely story, beautifully told but there were a couple of inconsistencies which niggled at me. However, it was still a delightful, entertaining read and one I’m happy to give four stars.
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Alison Robinson
May 25, 2021
Milly is a freelance fashion writer on her way to the interview of her life with British Vogue when her pre-occupation with her mobile phone leads to her being mown down by a London bus. Fast-forward a week and Milly comes out of a coma with cracked ribs, a broken arm, cuts and bruises. Worse, a week in hospital has meant that Milly has missed numerous deadlines and she has lost all her regular columns and writing work. Then to put a cherry on a really poobah week, her landlady serves her notice on the awful flat they share, because Milly clearly won't be able to pay the rent with no work coming in. Only through her time in hospital does Milly realise that she has prioritised her career over friends, over family, and over love. But when the chips are down the only people there to support her are her family and her ex-boyfriend Jed. I can only describe this as a mash-up/retelling of A Little Princess, with a smoosh of the film Overboard (which actually is probably a modern, grown-up version of A Little Princess anyway), a whisper of A Christmas Carol and just about every Hallmark movie ever made. Milly was clearly a 'bad person' pre her encounter with the bus, she even missed her nephew's sole speaking line at the school play. She is glued to her phone 24/7 and pays no attention to friends and family. Unfortunately, for me, Milly's road to enlightenment is less of a road and more of a doorstep. Within a day or two of waking up (it seems) bad Milly is no more and now we have caring sharing Milly who wanders around London with her eyes wide open seeing all the parts of London she never had time for before. She talks to random strangers on the bus and in a church (TBH at this point I suspected that there might be some woo-woo higher power at work, but luckily that fear was unfounded), she enters into conversations with the local bookshop owner and the Italian who owns the deli round the corner. And now Jed, Jed is a self-made millionaire who devotes a lot of time to charity and other good works, he dates a super-model heiress and seems to work from home an awful lot. A self-made millionaire under the age of 30 who only seems to work part-time - He must be a unicorn. I'm writing this with raging insomnia and so I am being particularly snarky but this novel relies on a series of coincidences to make things work. Is it really likely that one week in a coma would mean that Milly would have missed every single deadline, surely some of her columns would have been monthly? Is it also likely that the entire industry would completely blank her, even after she explained about the coma, and especially when she was always quick to help others out in the past (surely in the Hallmark film this is where all her former clients and mentees would turn up with offers of work, or at least a box of chocolates)? Then because of the aforementioned landlady and having no money and her brother having building work done the only place Milly can stay is in Jed's penthouse apartment? And there's more but I won't spoil things that happen later in the book. Overall, this was a pleasant enough read, but totally predictable from start to finish, it needed more subtlety, more light and dark. The characters felt too one-dimensional. For example, Milly's brother confiscates her phone, rightly blaming her accident on Milly's obsession with emails and social media. But then later when she doesn't answer four calls from him he isn't the least bit concerned - if I called someone who was glued to their phone and they didn't answer/call me back within a few hours I'd be contacting the police! I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
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anita busby
August 10, 2024
loved this book, couldn't wait to turn the next page, to see what Milly and Jed were going to do next. It's all about love, life and what really matters, family and good friends. Sometimes we have to look up and see what really is in our lives.
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About the author

Maxine Morrey is a bestselling romantic comedy author with over a dozen books to her name. When not word wrangling, Maxine can be found reading, sewing and listening to podcasts. Her novel You've Got This! won Best Romantic Comedy Novel at the RNA Awards 2024

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