Bagshawe brings sexy back (Do Not Disturb - Tilly Bagshawe)

Member Name: burtybookworm

Product:	Do Not Disturb - Tilly Bagshawe
Date:	25/01/09 (166 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good characters with great back stories, interesting, lots of threads, sexy stuff!

Disadvantages: takes a while to get in to, rather long for this genre!

There are many books in the chick lit genre now that seem to have taken the glamour route as apposed to the normal girl trying to win the heart of normal guy. This return to the Jilly Cooper style of romantic fiction is actually something I quite enjoy, some escapism glamour and fashion usually set in a world that is unknown to me, with gorgeous sexy and beautiful characters who are ruthless determined and successful. The most impressive of these books come from the two Bagshawe sisters; Louise Bagshawe, who really specialises in the beautiful girls and the gorgeous fashion, and Tilly Bagshawe, who has a mix of both, but whose stories tend to be quite engrossing in the end also.

The author & The Story
================
Tilly Bagshawe's book "Do Not Disturb", is her third novel at just 26, about the hotel industry from several different perspectives. Honor Palmer has taken over the running of the Palmers hotel in the famous Hamptons, she has a big task on her hands as it is slowly being run in to the ground, not helped by a money grabbing stepmother and a fame seeking younger sister. Born in to a long standing family, Honor only has the reputation of Palmers to help her get through.

Lucas Ruiz, unlike Honor, is not born in to riches. A poor Spanish boy from Ibiza, he is determined to own his own hotel one day, and makes a good start by running the new hotel owned by Billionaire hotelier, Anton Tisch in the Hamptons. Anton, a ruthless, self obsessed businessman, will stop at nothing to get the Palmers hotel out of business and with Lucas' determination to succeed and Antons greed, it becomes a lethal combination.

My Thoughts
=========

There are many characters in this (rather large) book that are given equal voices aside from the characters mentioned above. There is also Lola, the beautiful daughter of Honors married lover, Sian, a poor but determined woman desperate to get a foot in the door with her journalism and Ben, Lucas' best friend and all round nice guy. Despite the amount of characters that are in the book, it is not at all overwhelming and the different threads of stories from each story blend together well and link up and are each as interesting as one another. There were times at the beginning of the book where I found the stories of Sian and Ben more interesting than the "main" thread of Lucas and Honor, but by the time the half way point of the book came about, I was engrossed with how they would all turn out.

I enjoyed the villainous characters in this book immensely. Anton and his new manager (as well as Lucas' nemesis) Petra were often quite cartoon like in the way they were portrayed, concocting evil plans and generally being portrayed as sharp, spiky and truly evil from their personalities right the way through to their personal appearances, but this worked really well! It is also clear from the start of the book that Lucas is meant to be a character that the reader is supposed to sympathise with as much as Honor. Honor gets the reader on side by her determination to succeed, whereas the setting up of Lucas' childhood does much to encourage sympathys and it is because of this that it makes it hard to dislike him as a character when he begins to sabotage Honors reputation. Generally speaking throughout the novel, he is arrogant and over confident, but you cannot help wishing he would succeed, and then I generally felt torn between Honor and him as to who I wanted to win out of their private battle.

As with all of these types of books, it is quite clear - romantically anyway - what will happen and who will be with who by the end of the book. What makes it much more exciting is the twists and turns along the way. The pace of the story picks up after the first couple of chapters and its extremely enjoyable reading. Like her previous books as well as her sister Louise Bagshawes novels, I found the story of their careers more interesting than the love lives themselves, especially when you see the perspectives of Anton and Petra.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was quite a big read, but the stories flowed and entwined and there were enough characters and storylines to keep me amused through to the end. I always expect a happy ever after with these books, but Tilly Bagshawe provides a sexed up version to the usual fluff that comes from the chick lit genre. I'll buy her next one too (due out in May!)

Summary: Chick lit worth reading. x