Love At Second Sight by Cathy Hopkins

I apologise massively as this review was meant to go live on Friday but due some Blogger shenanigans, it did not happen.  However, here's the review and I hope it was worth the extra wait!)


Unlucky in love Jo is dragged along to see a clairvoyant by her two coupled-up best friends, and is told that there's only one boy for her. The trouble is, the last time she saw him was in a past life, when she worked as a governess to his younger brother. The clairvoyant tells her that as she is back in this life, so is he, and she must find him if she is ever to know true happiness and love.


Jo doesn't believe a word of it - but then a series of events begin to change her mind. Could her one true love really be out there? In her quest to find the One, she visits psychics and cemeteries - but will she even be able to recognize her soul-mate when she finds him? Or is she destined to continue looking for love for all of time?

This review will be brief - because well, I think that younger teen girls will love this story and even older teens and rickety old women like me will love this story.

Jo has to be one of Cathy's strongest female characters she's ever written.  Jo is Every Girl.  She has her two best pals she hangs out with, but lately she's been feeling the odd one out - she's the one without the boyfriend and although she's pretty much okay with it, she can't help but wonder if there's something wrong with her.

When they go off to a fun fair and her one friend insists they go to a fortune teller and the fortune teller reveals that Jo used to be a governess in her previous life and that she unfortunately missed out on her true love, her soul mate, in that life...but that she now stood a chance in this life to find him...Jo thinks that she's crazy to even partway entertain this wild fiction she's been sold.

I've read books in the past where the main character has been told their fortune and the token protests are made but deep down you know they really believe the story they've been told - this is not the case in Jo's story.  You get the feeling that she really doesn't believe any of the "mind body spirit" stuff at all and she approaches it in a very logical and normal way, quite systematic...and yet, you sense how her will wavers as things start stacking up against her strong logic.

As the story grows and we get to know Jo and her friends better, Cathy has great fun playing with our own perceptions of things.  I liked how the story neatly spiralled out in ever widening circles and how Jo started doing research into the story she's been told and how her friends support her and how she handles the interest from three boys...gaah! It all gets so very tense and you just will Jo not to screw things up.

It's longer than Cathy's Million Dollar Mates books and meatier as it gives Jo a chance to go through this great character development arc.  All the Cathy trademark things are there though - great friendships written well, lovely boys to fall for, and just...well, let's be plain: great fun writing and a very engaging and interesting story.

Give Love At Second Sight a whirl - I don't think you'll be sorry.