Angie Shepherd is back and this time she means business!
Life is perfect for Angie Shepherd. Her dreams of becoming an entrepreneur have come true, business is booming, and her best friend Patty is back in town. So when the opportunity of investing in a luxury hotel comes up, it seems like a no-brainer. It's all going swimmingly until a rival travel agency opens up across the street. Before long, The Mercury Travel Club is undercut, double-crossed and in deep trouble. It's time for Angie to up the stakes. But with costs mounting up, sales going down, and her personal life suddenly in freefall, can Angie and her friends weather the storm?
Witty and charming in equal measure, this feel-good novel shows that when the going gets tough, the tough definitely get going.
What did I think?
In this follow up to The Mercury Travel Club we rejoin Angie and friends at the point where the sky's the limit for their quirky little Manchester based travel agency. The award winning travel agency is firmly established in the high street and they have plans to invest in a luxury hotel in an exclusive resort. It seems like everything is going right until the vacant shop across the road is revealed as 'Launch', another travel agency and the high street is only big enough for one of them.
Launch's owner, Lorenzo, is described brilliantly by Helen Bridgett as a snake in the grass who slithers along the high street wearing his snakeskin belt. Obviously, I was on Team Mercury but with this brilliant snake theme the reader is under no illusion that Lorenzo is a typical cartoon style bad guy. I even found myself imagining him as Dick Dastardly. His underhand dealings threaten to put Mercury out of business but Angie's colleagues and friends rally round to play him at his own game. With customers and even staff moving over to Launch, is it too late to save Mercury? Time to bring in the big guns: Patty!
I absolutely love Angie's friend, Patty. She reminds me so much of Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous, but now Patty has a new man in her life she is ready to settle down again. There are still hints of the hilarious Patty we know and love, especially in the dating advice she gives Angie. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at some of the things she comes out with but it was lovely to see another side to Patty as she shows what she's made of when the chips are down.
After working so hard for her business, Angie deserves a bit of happiness in her private life and she's met a lovely man in Michael. With Lorenzo's plans to destroy Angie's business in full force, Angie's relationship with Michael also comes under threat. I felt as if Angie's world could fall around her at any moment...but not if her friends have any say in the matter it won't. I love how close these guys are; they aren't just colleagues and business partners, they're a family and a force to be reckoned with in the fight against snaky Lorenzo.
The Heat is On had me laughing one minute and seething the next. It felt very much like a fight between good and evil and even typing the name 'Lorenzo' is enough to make my skin crawl and my blood boil. One thought remained constant whilst I was reading: if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. It's frightening but true, how quickly we can switch our allegiance when offered a shiny new 'too good to be true' deal but don't forget that you often get what you pay for...and here's one especially for Lorenzo: what goes around comes around.
My rating:
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