You Had Me At Halo

Amanda Ashby’s debut book, YOU HAD ME AT HALO, had me from the first page.

Amanda’s writing style is fun, fresh and fast paced and you just have to keep on reading because as you see things from Holly’s point of view you keep wondering ‘how on earth is she going to resolve this?’

To give you an idea, this is the back cover blurb:

Holly Evans has just seen her body laid to rest, and if it had been up to her, she wouldn’t have chosen that particular polyester dress for the event. Still, she could live with that (so to speak), if it guarnatee a quick jump to Level 3 of the afterlife, which she hopes will feature both reruns of Friends and reunions with long-lost loved ones.

But Holly has some mortal baggage to unload first, starting with the matter ofhow she died. yes, she drowned in her bathtub under suspicious circumstances, but she did not kill herself. Holly had too much to live for, from her recent promotion to tkaing the next big step in her relationship. OK, her life had a few loose ends, but whose doesn’t? Holly’s heavenly shrink isn’t buying it. He says she has to return to Earth to straighten things out. The problem is, she’ll need to borrow someone’s body to do so, and the body in question belongs to none other than computer geek Vince Murphy. Oh, and although Vince was supposed to have vacated the premises, he aparrently never got the memo.

Now Holly has 48 hours to resolve her issues while sharing arms, legs, and…other things with a guy she barely noticed while she was alive. But the real surprise is what life has to offer when you have only two days to live it.

Now, I’m not normally a ‘race-out-and-buy-it’ fan of chick-lit/young adult/woman’s fiction. I’m a died in the wool romance reader be it contemporary, historical or romantic suspense (so call me boring, I don’t care :-P) but every now and then I like to step out of my comfort zone and read something new. Having ‘known’ Amanda through RWNZ for years I was really keen to read her first book and, wow, she hasn’t disappointed this reader.

Published through NAL, ISBN: 978-0-451-22135-3, if you enjoy humour, relationships–heck, life!–look for YOU HAD ME AT HALO. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Here’s an excerpt.