Michelle Holman

Growing up April Ritchie was a spoilt princess, and living in a small town where everyone knows of her behaviour doesn't earn her any fans. But at 17 April is either kicked out of home or walks out - depending on who tells the story. Returning home 9 years later, as a kiss-o-gram girl much to everyone's amusement, April is a very different person but will anyone in Pisa believe it?

For me, Michelle Holman's books are the perfect light summer reading, and Hand Me Down is no exception.

Holman is known for her unique New Zealand settings, but I particularly loved this one - the fictional town of Pisa is based on the township of Cromwell, a place where I've spent plenty of time as it's very close to where I grew up and went to high school. Hand Me Down is also set on a cherry orchard, and like any self respecting Central Otago kid, I spent more than one summer holiday working on orchards picking fruit. I found plenty to relate to in this story.

I always enjoy Holman's inversion of the typical romance genre 'woman tames bad boy' plot. Her women tend to be strong, somewhat troublesome to deal with and have oodles of sass, and while there's inevitably a good man to sort her out, he has to put up with plenty of smartass one-liners along the way.

Holman's writing style is distincly Kiwi and down to earth, with her quirky humour providing some great banter between her characters and lots of chuckles until the very last page.… (meer)

“Nobody goes to heaven and gets sent back to earth in another person’s body by some rookie angel”, or so says Dan, but that’s exactly what happens to Lisa after she’s involved in a car accident. Luckily for her, rookie angel George takes pity on her in the waiting room to heaven.

As we see Lisa trying to convince those around her (including her grieving family) that she's not Linda, but Lisa in Linda's body, Dan is trying to come to terms with the fact that the woman living with him looks like his wife, but is actually someone very different. And he likes the new version of his wife better than the old one.

Bonkers has some surprisingly emotional moments, and Holman’s quirky humour shines throughout. A really nice quick read.… (meer)