Looking Out For Love by Sophia Money-Coutts

 

Looking Out for Love by Sophia Money-Coutts.

Published 2nd February 2023 by HQ.

From the cover of the book:

Stella Shakespeare isn’t having a good day, or month come to think of it. She’s been unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend, cut off from the bank of dad and at thirty-two years old, she doesn’t know what she’s doing with her life.

What Stella really wants is to find love. She wants all-consuming, can’t-think-about-anything-else, can’t-even-manage-to-eat kind of love. What she found beside her in bed that morning wasn’t love. But when a tall, handsome man in a well-fitting suit walks into a Notting Hill pub, she thinks she’s finally found The One.

Everything seems to be falling into place now Stella has met the man of her dreams and has an actual job working with a private investigator nicknamed ‘The Affair Hunter’. Although sadly, life is never that straightforward and Stella starts to question whether she’s been looking for love in the wrong places all along…

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Since being dumped by her aristocratic boyfriend, Stella is stuck in a groove of bad life choices, especially when it comes to men. Her 33rd birthday is on the horizon and it is time to make some decisions about her life.

First of all, she needs a job, as her wealthy father has withdrawn her credit card privileges, and luckily one has just fallen into her lap. It is not quite what she was looking for, but being the assistant to a slightly batty private detective, who calls herself The Affair Hunter, is bound to be interesting, right? Financially things are looking up, and it seems that her love life might also be on the turn when the man of her dreams walls into her local pub in Notting Hill.

But life is never straightforward, and it is about to throw a few more spanners in Stella's direction - ones which will set her thinking that perhaps she has been looking at love in the wrong way...

Stella is at a crossroads in her life. Her thirties have crept up on her as she has drifted from pillar to post waiting for the man who will sweep her off her feet, relying on handouts from her dysfunctional family to fund her chaotic lifestyle. Her obsession with 'happily ever after' is all consuming, and it blinds her to what is going on around her. When her support network falls away, she discovers that she has not only been looking at love in the wrong way all this time, but that she has also been looking for it in the wrong places.

There is a lovely cast of characters here to help Stella along on her journey to enlightenment. The one constant in her life is her best friend, and flat mate, Billie. Billie has a lot to cope with in this story, and is at the heart of many of the home truths Stella has to learn before she can see the error of her ways. I also loved their adorable downstairs neighbour Harold, who is recently widowed and makes a mean curry dip; the eccentric PI Marjorie, with her fancy-dress box and somewhat jaded nuggets of wisdom on marriage and the opposite sex; and of course, the wonderful Dr Sam, waiting in the wings. Stella is so caught up in her self-absorbed bubble for much of the book, and although I did want to give her a shake a lot of the time, the strides she makes really endeared her to me. It is no surprise that she is clueless, given her awful family, who Money-Coutts describes with acerbic wit. Fortunately, she finds her tribe, begins to trust in her own abilities and instincts, and all the enchanting little pieces of the story come together to hit that emotional sweet-spot.

I love the Money-Coutts' brand of rom-com novels. She has such a talent for mixing humour and heart with thought provoking issues, and this latest book does that to perfection. There are threads here that recur through her work, such as the pressure to settle down and have children, but it is what healthy relationships are really about that is central to this story, and she explores this beautifully - along with love of family and the give and take of true friendship. 

This is Money-Coutts' fifth novel, and it is my favourite of them all so far. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it gave me all the warm and fuzzies my heart desires. I adored it, and cannot wait for book six!

Looking Out for Love is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to HQ for sending ne a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Sophia Money-Coutts is a journalist and author who spent five years studying the British aristocracy while working as Features Director at Tatler. Prior to that she worked as a writer and an editor for the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail in London, and The National in Abu Dhabi. She writes a column for The Sunday Telegraph called Modern Manners and often appears on radio and television channels talking about important topics such as Prince Harry’s wedding and the etiquette of the threesome. Looking Out For Love is her fifth novel.