If This Is Paradise, I Want My Money Back
Claudia Carroll

William Morrow
October, 2011 / ISBN: 978-0-06-204515-7
Contemporary Novel
Amazon

Reviewed by Elaine Broome

If This Is Paradise, I Want My Money Back makes me wish for summer. Picture it…nice sunny day, lounge chair, little umbrella drink, and a fun, frothy book to complete the perfection. Well, this is that book. Claudia Carroll's novel has a little bit of everything; great characters, lots of laughs, and a few tears along the way. It tells the story of Charlotte Grey, an ordinary woman who's run into some very bad luck. After a blazing argument with her no-good, lying, cheating boyfriend (the slimy James Kane), Charlotte has an accident…a devastating accident and finds herself in, well, what appears to be heaven's waiting room. Her long dead father welcomes her, and she learns that she's waiting to be "assessed". After an emotional conversation with her father, Charlotte is offered the chance to move things along by returning to earth as an angel, a guardian angel, to watch over, of all people, James Kane. You can only imagine Charlotte's thoughts!

Charlotte is not your typical angel! No wings, no harp, no sweet guidance…in fact, no sweet anything as far as James is concerned. Once she discovers he can hear her, Charlotte goes about exacting her revenge…James finds that karma has quite a nasty bite! She also decides to help her sister Kate and best friend Fiona out while she's at it. Or at least she's pretty sure she's helping. Charlotte's efforts at sabotaging James' career, matchmaking for Fiona and helping Kate nurture her marriage quickly become much more complicated than expected. In fact, nothing seems to be going the way it should.

I just loved this book! Underneath all of the laughs and dizzying plot twists lie some very big truths. There's more substance, more heart than appears right on the surface. So, welcome summer a little early by diving into the pleasures of "paradise".