Growing up in a small town in Tasmania means that Charli has been bored for most of her life. In June, winter, she's seventeen and she feels that there must be more to life than helping to run a gift shop and marrying at twenty-one. She's not looking forward to a friend's wedding, and a car soaking her as she walks doesn't help. The driver, here for the wedding, apologises. Adam is a French-American lad, polite and good looking, but he'll be flying out again.Charli gives Adam the brief guided tour of Piper's Cove. He's almost twenty-one and after spending time with family he'll return to New York for law school. He asks her if they were destined to meet. But she allows two self-absorbed stylish girls to see Adam for the afternoon. She goes to school with them. But once her older brother, surfer Alex, has met him, Adam seems happy to spend time with Charli. As time passes Alex becomes worried that Charli will follow Adam to New York. "You'll be a long way from home if it ends badly," he warns her.I liked Alex, and when a family secret is revealed, it didn't make me think any worse of him. By contrast it is very hard to know about Adam; more mature and sophisticated, he pays a lot of attention to a girl still at school. They don't have books or much else in common. Refurbishing a boat and cliffside walks are all very well, but Adam is from a city so alien that the small-town girl can barely imagine life there. Charli thinks she knows what she wants, but nobody has ever paid attention to her before. Teens may identify with Charli's strong feelings but while she's always wanted to get away, maybe Sydney would be a safer place to start.GJ Walker Smith has written a tale of growing up and facing realities as well as a look at life where the next land is Antarctica. The next book in this series will be called Second Hearts. Charli is a small town girl who has lived her whole life in a little seaside village in Tasmania at the very bottom of Australia who believes she's the town's equivalent of a naughty girl, only she's not. Charli has big dreams of escaping her small town life and travelling the world. Until Adam, a gorgeous French American breezes into town on the back of a postcard that Charli had taken the photograph for. He sweeps her off her feet and she falls in love with him. But their lives are so different, can love overcome that?This book really surprised me. Previous YA romances I've read always seem to fall short and don't do justice to the fact that teenagers behave, well, like teenagers. In this book Charli does although her view of evilness is somewhat distorted (the things she does are quite tame compared to things I remember happening in my own teenage years) and the beautifuls far less evil than they could have been. But otherwise a very enjoyable read.
What do You think about Saving Wishes (2013)?
My goodness, why do I keep reading sad ending books ........ :/
—Marsi
Free iBook, but i liked it so much I bought the next one.
—macs
Amazing series! Cannot wait for the new one to come out.
—Meshach
