365 Days of Lara Branson

365 Days of Lara Branson
by Kit Tunstall
BeWrite Books, UK
1-904224-93-8
Trade $16.12 - Ebook $1.64
www.bewrite.net Ah, the single woman. Always on the move, starting a career, bouncing around from man to man, trying to find the perfect one and usually falling flat on their faces when they gets close. We laugh, we cry. This kind of fiction has flooded the lit world for the last few years. I remember my Barnes and Noble day when Brigit Jones came out and became the new spoke woman and ushered in a new genre (although it might have been a revival if you consider the Brontes and those chicks back in the day). Soon every publishing house was pumping out books written by woman about woman and their single life follies. Most woman that talked about the books felt that they weren't realistic and pretty funny, they even used the words Fun Trash.
Well, since I am a man, I may be shot for this. But I found "365 Days of Lara Branson" far from trash. BANG! BANG!
Written like a journal, we go through a year with Lara Branson who has accepted being single at the age of 35 and pretty much given up on men and marriage. After all, what does she need a man for; she runs a successful shop, has great friends, her own place and money. But she wants to have a baby, does she need a man for that, hell no. Lara sets out on the journey of artificial insemination.
Through the book we deal with Lara's anxious mother, her horrible younger sister, her best friends Fiona and Vic's love life, and most of all, a giant curve ball in Lara's plan for life; an artistic glass blower named Vaughn who threatens Lara's beliefs of marriage and love.
The style the novel really impressed me. Like a true journal, it was frank and abrupt, slim with very little dialogue, and captivating. I breezed through this 230-page novel, breezed through the year actually, and I have to say, it left me wanting more. I loved the characters and even though everything was pared down (each word carefully chosen) I felt a part of the world. I didn't want it to end.
BANG! BANG!
Here is my last dying breath:
"365 Days of Lara Branson" is a fun, addicting, and honest book that inhales life and respect into a trashy genre of single women fiction.
Review by Mike Purfield

Critical Raves for Mike Purfield's "Dirty Boots."
"If you're looking for a good read, something you've never experienced before, then this is the book for you." Paul Kane of Terror Tales.
Rated 3 out of 4 by Unhinged Magazine.
-Click the cover to find out more-