I'd been looking forward to the gorgeous looking Heaven Can Wait by Cally Taylor for ages and I wasn't disappointed. I laughed - out loud (unheard of for me) - at a sentence on the very first page. Good start, I thought, then went on to laugh even more towards the end of the first chapter.
Cally has written short stories for various magazines and anthologies and won competitions for her writing but Heaven Can Wait is her debut novel. It is about Lucy Brown who, on the eve of her wedding day, has a fatal accident. Yes, that's right. Fatal.
So this isn't your regular chick lit. As you may have guessed from the title - this is chick lit with a supernatural twist.
Instead of going to heaven straight away, Lucy is given an option. If she chooses to undertake a task and is successful she can become a ghost on earth, thus being with Dan, her fiance, for ever more. She chooses the task, and finds herself in a house, in London, 'living' alongside two other 'dead' people with their own tasks to undertake.
Lucy's mission: to find love for a computer geek.
Now I know I said I laughed out loud on the first page, but this contemporary novel has many sides. Heaven Can Wait is a novel about true love. About being with a person for ever and ever and doing whatever necessary in order to do that. So it's got sad elements and also suspense and an identifiable and real main character. Not bad for a dead woman.
There are twists and turns and all the way through I'm thinking, how is Cally going to tie this up, to give a decent ending? Not to give anything away, but it's a good 'un.
This is a fantastic debut novel from a first time author. Definitely one to watch.
I loved this too, a fab debut.
Posted by: Chloe @ chicklitreviews | 29 October 2009 at 09:41 PM
Loved it too!
Posted by: Debs | 30 October 2009 at 06:12 PM
Just finished reading this :) A brilliant debut, and a refreshing change from your normal chick lit love story
Posted by: Dee | 02 November 2009 at 07:08 PM