Little Lady, Big Apple by Hester Browne

The sequel to The Little Lady Agency and it definitely helps if you have read the first one.  I would imagine this would work okay as a stand alone read but there is much left out here that presumes you have read the first book and already understand the nature of Melissa's work, friends and family relationships.  Fortunately, I am reading in order (for a change) so it felt more like slipping a cosy pair of pyjamas on.

Melissa is just as we left her, in a relationship with Jonathan and sharing a home with Nathan in London.  But that all changes when Nathan announces he has got a job crewing a Tall Ship for 3 months and is having the house renovated whilst he is at sea so Melissa is going to have to move out.  Then Jonathan drops another bombshell as he just had a promotion in the International Estate Agency he works for and needs to move back to New York.  Melissa is torn but decides to take up Jonathan's offer of a holiday stateside, leaving her Agency in the not-so-trustworthy hands of her best friend and her sister.

The writing has certainly stepped up a pace since the first book and the plot flows smoothly and the character interactions are much less "clunky".  Again it is a tale of misunderstandings and manners told in a wryly humourous fashion; not laugh out loud but certainly makes you grin.  With a cast of out of place Public Schoolboys who have never grown up and New York Socialites it romps gleefully along through the upper echelons of society.  Somehow it all feels much more real than the first book.

This is a book to enjoy with a huge glass of wine and a box of very good chocolates by your side, the telephone turned off and your family and friends told to leave you alone.  It is not great literature but it does what a good book of any genre should do - entertains and uplifts you.

**Review originally published February 3rd, 2018**