Casey – Echoes In An Empty Room

One wedding. One curse? Disaster ever after…

A seven-years-bad-sex curse? Surely not! Yet something went wrong when rock singer Casey and drummer Alex got married on that beautiful yacht anchored off St Tropez in the south of France. Something went badly wrong. For even on their wedding night, the young couple discovers a complete and somewhat surprising inability to make love. Muddling through their honeymoon with a string of thin excuses for their predicament, the lovers defer finding a solution (and panicking) until the return to their home in London. After all, they married for life and to make rock music, not for the love of sex. Right?

But when they resume life as normal in London, all hell breaks loose. Increasingly frantic in their quest for release, the unhappy newlyweds embark on a string of hilarious and occasionally harmful antics that drives them, their band, and an assortment of random strangers to the brink of despair. But it ain’t over ‘til it’s over or, in this case… it ain’t over ‘til the newlyweds sing.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book, any book written by Nicky is brilliant. It is a romantic comedy that is truly funny. The main characters are Casey and Alex who have just got married and are finding it hard to “perform”, they both have many excuses but when tomorrow turns into a month, they are aware something is not right. So they try everything they can to spark it again with some very interesting results. There are many things that this book highlights, the power of love and the understanding of love, but it is a well written story that I really enjoyed reading about.

What would life be like if you could recall every detail of your entire life? Casey has hyperthymesia, a rare condition which means that she has perfect recollection of her past, a burden which imprisons her in her memories. There is no joy in the present, no thought of the future; only the inescapable past playing constantly in her mind. Then one day she meets Joe, a man without a past. Or is he? Together they find a present, which has the potential to save them both but also forces them to confront a future that challenges their love of life and each other. Degrees of Losing is a story about love and loss, memory and time, and what it means to be somebody.

My Thoughts:

This book is an easy read, it is an unusual love story with some twists that you do not expect. I found all the characters interesting especially Casey. There is lots of emotions in this book and it made me think about life. Shan explores the relationship between identity and memory extremely well. I love the fact that the place where the story is set is Manchester and London, it always nice when you know the places.