Book Review: The Double by Alison Brodie

One of my blog goals for 2016 is to do more “book community” stuff. Ergo. I signed up with I Heart All the Books to participate in a couple of book tours! Yay, me. Isn’t it amazing how easy it is to get involved with writers and their work these days!? Anyway, I received a free copy of the book in order to provide a book review and to participate.

  

Here's the book's official (and much too detailed) blurb:

A night she can’t remember. A week she won’t forget. 

Beth is mistaken for rock star, Sonita La Cruz, and ends up on a billionaire-dollar yacht. As a shift-worker in Glasgow, Beth has only known hardship. Now she's in a world of uniformed stewards, French cuisine and rows of gorgeous designer frocks. Beth keeps quiet about the mix-up, determined to wear every outfit in her wardrobe before she's sent home. What's wrong with a little play-acting? Beth takes to the role of rock diva like a duck takes to water.

The captain arrives. Aleksandr sees a raven-haired girl in tiara and diamond-studded bikini lying on deck issuing orders through a megaphone. Aleksandr realizes what’s happened: His smuggling pals, knowing he needs to speak to Sonita about a kid’s crisis, have grabbed this lookalike and brought her here to meet him. Sadly, the girl is not Sonita. Aleksandr is desperate. Sonita promised to help the children but she’s disappeared.

Beth rises to the challenge. She looks like Sonita, so why not BE Sonita? Beth does a magazine interview for one million dollars, and ransoms herself for another million. Beth saves the children but can she save herself? Too late, Beth discovers the reason why Sonita disappeared.

 *

A full-bodied romance that sweeps across the globe, from a civil war in the Eastern Bloc, to a luxury yacht on the Côte d'Azur, to a poor housing estate in Glasgow.

  

Here’s what I had to say about it:

There is not a lot to add to the plot given the details that the blurb gives. Sonita is a humanitarian rock star who is starting to feel the pressure of being famous. Beth is a nurse who is married to an asshole and is always putting the needs of other's before her own. When Beth decides to have a night out, and maybe explore some naughty feelings with a work-mate, she is kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity.

It took me several chapters to get into this book, which is pretty common for me with books that switch character points of view for each chapter. Also, because I knew I had this post coming up, I was overly focused on how fast I was reading it, which isn't really fair to the book! Anywhoo... Once I let all that go, I really got swept up in the story and the pages flew by. There are several subplot like things going on: Beth and her husband, Beth and her interest in her colleague, the hot guy on the boat, the mafia who is going to bomb the hospital, a guys in jail, a stalker, and Sonita's questionable past.

This is classic chick lit fodder: disgruntled, martyr-y wife who is swept up by a handsome stranger who falls in love with her at first sight. Of course, the bad guys are all bad and we don't have to have too many mixed feelings about hating them and rejoicing when they get what's coming to them. The things this book does well, though, is to make you care about the all the main characters, even the rich jerk that Sonita is set to marry.

One wierd thing about the book, though. There are two Latina rock stars that look enough alike for Beth to kind of look like both of them. In fact, when she gets mistaken for Sonita, it was the other starlet she was trying to imitate. As one interested in how diversity is handled in fiction, it felt very "they all look alike" to me." I did like the range of nationalities represented in the book as well as a call to awareness that when countries are at war, it is children and the poor who suffer the most. 

If you hate how quickly/ conveniently all these things can get wrapped up or about insta-love, then this is not the book for you. In fact, chick lit is not the genre for you. But if you like a fast- paced story with a little misadventure, hyjinks, and a comedy of errors, you should check out this little diddy. 

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Here are the other blogs participating in this blog tour! Show 'em that love!

April 25^th -

Promo Post: Literary Chanteuse www.literarychanteuse.blogspot.ca

Promo Post: Ever Growing Book Obsession https://www.facebook.com/evergrowingbookobsession

April 26^th 

Promo Post: The Belgian Reviewer

Thebelgianreviewer.wordpress.com

Promo Post: Red's Midnight Readers

http://redsmidnightreaders.blogspot.com

April 27^th

Book Review: vvb32 reads

http://vvb32reads.blogspot.com/ -

April 28^th

Promo Post: Ali - The Dragon Slayer

http://cancersuckscouk.ipage.com/ 

April 29^th

Book Review: Booked Up Boss (MEE!!)

Bookedupandbossy.blogspot.com 

May 2nd

Book Promo: The Bookworm Lodge

www.thebookwormlodge.com