Thank you for helping me experience my lifetime dream of living on a remote island in the...uk. Now that dream needs to come to fruition. OOO ( )

Really enjoyed this as a simple light-hearted read. Probably not the sort of thing I would've picked up by myself. Going to lend it to my mum-in-law to read.

Spent the whole thing imagining the island to be Bute because of odd references and then at the end the author actually mentions the Isle of Bute as one of her favourite places.

Could see what was going to happen from the start but it was fun seeing where it was going and how it would get there. ( )

A light and dreamy book about a girl who gets dumped and sets off to find herself (aka escape from the real world). The island sounds lovely (although too cold for my taste) and all the characters sound like people I'd love to be friends with. If only this place/people existed in real life - sigh, guess that's what books are for. . . ( )

Let me lead right off by saying that I've never read a book like this before. By that, I don't mean "I've never read a book with this particular setting or plot before," but more generally, "I have never read a romance novel before," nor anything that might in a million years be termed chick-lit. Not once.

So, in that light, Sealed with a Kiss serves as my introduction not only to debuting novelist Rachael Lucas, but to an entire genre of fiction. And I now propose to draw sweeping conclusions about both, based solely on this one book. (No pressure, Ms. Lucas.)

The first thing that popped right off the page and into my face was the language. In a good way. I think I may have brought some negative bias to the table in that my expectations of the quality of writing in a "chick book" were fairly modest. I was pleasantly surprised, though: Lucas's prose is effortlessly smooth, humorous, peppered with cheerfully exotic (to my ear) terms such as "loo roll," "snog," and "loudhailer." She excels in description, constantly pulling the reader into her world with vivid simile and metaphor that managed to be surprising yet felt instantly familiar. The reader, much like the protagonist, finds him- or herself in a place that is new, yet at the same time warm and inviting.

Perhaps most surprising - and most impressive for a first novel - the dialogue in Sealed with a Kiss is excellent. Economical, streamlined, and always with the authentic ring of actual conversation. As this is a book whose plot necessarily hinges on verbal interactions between the characters, clunky dialogue would have been the kiss of death, but Lucas handles it deftly. In fact, I would say that Rachael Lucas shows writing chops here that would serve her well in just about any literary genre she chose. Though this is her first published novel, I would venture a guess that she's an experienced writer.

I can't remember if the blurb described this book as "breezy," but I certainly do. I normally seem to gravitate to novels with Big Conflict: novels where the protagonists are fighting for their lives, freedom, souls, or sanity; where they're trying to save the whole planet from destruction, keep an innocent man from being lynched, or cast the One Ring into the fires from whence it came. So it was a stark contrast, reading a book where the main questions were: Will Kate get the guy? If so, which guy? And will she learn a little about herself in the process? Also, what is that nasty bitch Fiona up to?

A story where the stakes are so comparatively small maintains interest based mostly on how deeply the reader buys into the characters. Luckily, there is where the author's strong powers of description and good ear for dialogue pay off, as the characters here seem nuanced and three-dimensional, familiar as old friends. It's another thing that pleasantly surprised me, as I sort of expected the characters in a romance novel to be cartoonish, one-note hunks or hags.

Which is not to say the people are all realistic. All the main male characters are uniformly described as gorgeous, to the point that Kate winks at the fourth wall by musing that the island seems to be some sort of absurd Hot Dude Refuge and Game Preserve (OK, my wording there). And the main love interest, Roderick, had me pinching the bridge of my nose with his over-the-topness. By the time he'd been put forth as...

1) strikingly handsome
2) a real Scottish laird
3) funny
4) but with a wounded heart, waiting for the right girl to come and heal his hidden pain

...I was near the breaking point, so when "Oh, by the way, he rescues adorable orphaned seals in his spare time" was added to the pile, I admit to snorting out loud incredulously. No dude is that perfect, otherwise what hope is there for the rest of us? But I have the feeling that my quibble here is with the conventions of the genre; one might as well look at Maxim magazine and complain that all the girls are too airbrushed and collagened. To buy a copy of Maxim is to subscribe to a certain brand of pleasant fantasy, and so perhaps is to read a romance novel.

At any rate! Three stars, and that doesn't really convey what an enjoyable read this was. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who is an aficionado of this genre, and it's a fun read even if you aren't. Rachael Lucas's voice here is warm, humorous - and tender when the moment calls for it. I'd happily read her next novel.

PS - Oh, and final kudos to the adorable cover art. Cover images for e-books in particular can be of such varying quality, from eye-catching art to slapdash home Photoshop work. Yet much like the label on a wine bottle, the cover art of an e-book is the first and sometimes the only chance to set itself apart from all the rest, for better or worse. ( )