The Mercury Travel Club is written by Helen Bridgett and was one of those books that I was automatically attracted to thanks to the delightful cover and blurb. As a book that provided me with a much needed break from reality and really helped to put a smile on my face, it was full of hilarious moments and characters I couldn’t help but love. I went into it hoping for great things and can certainly say that it more than lived up to them, I was not disappointed in the slightest.
In this book we meet 53-year-old Angie Shepherd who is newly divorced and quite unsure what she should do with herself. Taking advice, she throws herself into a selection of new and exciting activities from a book club to baking classes and speed dating to The Granny-Okes which turns out to be an internet sensation. Despite all of this, Angie wants more and so with dreams of entrepreneurial success decides to invest her divorce settlement into The Mercury Travel Club. However, just how successful will this be?
This was a book that contained so many features that I really did love, including Angie, Charlie, Josie and Patty who were four great characters. I particularly loved Patty and the way that despite having been through more than her fair share of heartbreak she always had a smile on her face and was always there to support Angie whenever it was needed. Something that worked really well was the way in which this book was set over the course of a year as I felt that this provided the opportunity to really get to know the characters and feel invested in their story.
The Mercury Travel Club was a wonderfully written book from beginning to end throughout which the writing style was nothing but engaging and entertaining. It was a thoroughly well-paced book with many chapters being just a few pages long, something which made it a truly irresistible novel to read and one that I ended up reading far more of than I intended to in just one sitting. Another aspect of this book that I thought was fabulous was the clever titles that were given to each of the chapters, all of which were appropriate given what happened within them. All in all this is a book which Helen has done an absolutely incredible book with.
One thing that I can safely say is that I found The Mercury Travel Club to be a true gem of a novel that was every bit as gorgeous on the inside as it was on the outside. It was a light-hearted and uplifting novel that is guaranteed to leave any reader smiling and make for perfect reading all year round. A truly super debut novel that has left me feeling very excited to see what more is to come from Helen Bridgett in the future.
