The Gin Lover’s Guide to Dating
by Nina Kaye

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

By the time she’s done, I’ve only heard, and taken in, a fraction of what she’s said. But I have developed, in my head, a full technicolour adaptation of how, given the chance, I would inflict the slowest and most painful death possible upon her. This beast needs to be slain.

 

‘She is clever. With Aaron she is like butter that would not spread.’ ‘You mean melt.’ … ‘She is a real jacket and hype.’ ‘You mean Jekyll and Hyde!’

 

I don’t have time for men in my life… My rule is to enjoy looking, but not to touch. They never turn out to be as good as the fantasy anyway.

 

‘So, you are older. This is good. You can teach him. You can be his puma… You know.’ Reyes searches for the explanation. ‘The older woman who takes a young hombre.’ ‘The word you’re looking for is cougar,’ I say flatly.

 

‘You are not over this hill.’ Reyes swipes her hand through the air, causing me to instinctively duck. ‘You are only thirty-one. This world is still your oyster sauce.’ ‘Oyster,’ I correct her. ‘It’s just oyster.’

My Review:

 

This was a slowly developing character-driven novel of women’s fiction with random yet frequent sparkles of amusing levity. I initially struggled with this one as I had difficulty working up much empathy for the main character as Liv came off as snobbish and just far too over-served with her own self-importance. Her goals were serious yet she lived a frivolous and shallow life while contemptuous of anything that appeared beneath her desired standing – Liv was not someone whom I would enjoy sharing my air. But I felt her devastation and inner turmoil and understood her issues once her history was revealed.

The secondary characters were an entertaining and interesting collection of likable personalities and the impetus of most of the humorous content with malaprops from an adorable English as a second language speaker. And the character’s surreptitious blog posts were beyond clever with tasty gin pairings that I was eager to replicate and consume. However, I nearly spluttered my Tom Collins at the idea of Liv waking up and discovering her new blog had amassed over twelve thousand subscribers without effort, that and her expectation to make serious coin from said blog. I laughed and laughed…

I stumbled upon a fun addition to my British Isles word list while enjoying this highly fictional account – with stonker, which is something that is large or impressive. I had a stonker of a bill for bar supplies after reading this thirst-inducing missive.