In her early 30s, Birdy is cruising along in life, going from job to job and not settling down. A misunderstanding leads her to impersonate her best friend, a world class sommelier, for a summer job in Scotland, in what she expects to be a run-down hotel. Turns out nothing is what's expected: the hotel has undergone renovations, and she finds herself having to put in actual work to get to know wine.
Though it took me a while to really get into the story, this was in general a nice read. Most of the characters Birdy encounters were easy to get attached to and her adventures did make me want to explore the Scottish countryside. I do however feel like the pace of the story was a little slow at times, and some plot point predictable. I did devour the end of the story in one sitting though, so in the end I was hooked.
If you're looking for a nice read this summer, this book might be for you!

This was an easy, quick read. The story had points of poignancy and depth that kept me invested, along with a fun wit that made this an easy read.

I went into this book blind. That is sometimes the best way to read a book. To that end I was not expecting anything about this plot. The reason that Birdy found herself in Scotland isn’t my favourite and I still don’t know how I feel about it. But everything for a reason. She met the exact people she was meant to meet and she started on the journey she was meant to be on.

It’s an unusual situation for me to have finished a book where I didn’t love the protagonist but I did love so many of the other characters. This book has been on my mind for almost a year. I’m glad I read it.

I think this is one of those books that will keep working away and maybe a week or a month from now I will realise I did actually love it!

A fun idea, well executed. Birdie is as hopeless as you'd expect in her new role but works hard to succeed so that you are willing her on. A light summer read :-)

I enjoyed this book as a nice beach read that's entertaining to keep your mind away.
Birdie wasn't a perfectly loveable character, but it was fun. The book is humorous and the writing is good.

This is not a full review as I only got 25% of the way through it. This is my minimum I always want to try and reach before abandoning a book.

Homeless for the summer, Birdie Finch takes her best friends place at a summer job. Broad brush that's as far as I go before I couldn't cope with how selfish, annoying and such a bad friend Birdie was. I have no doubt it probably got better and I have to trust that she redeems herself by the end of the book, but I need a little more likability up front from characters - even the flawed ones - if I am going to invest my time in their story.

This is the perfect summer read!!

It's going to make you laugh out loud. You will probably be a little bit annoyed by the main character but she will totally make you forget about that because she's just that lovely. This book is about love, food, finding yourself, friendship and life itself. It's a fun, easy, fast-paced and entertaining read.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a arc!

I'm realllyyyyyyy behind on my reading for NetGalley due to personal reasons and this book has now been archived and it won't load on my kindle.

Will purchase a copy soon!

This was a book, that might be different to one that I would normally read. I really liked most of the characters, a few that I was not so keen on was the ones I think we were not supposed to like. The book did take a few unexpected turns but it was a pleasant read and light hearted. As the book was coming to the end it changed to what I expected but it worked out well as it kept you wanting to read. A great book, thanks net galley for allowing me to read it.

Oh, gosh. I had heard so much great stuff about this book, I was really looking forward to reading it. Although I didn’t hate it, I struggled to enjoy it, for a few reasons. I do appreciate how hard it is to write a novel and the effort it takes to raise it out of the ether and into real life, and so many people like it so this is just my opinion.

The premise is that Birdy is a 30 something who has not done a great deal with her life. Bouncing from one dead end job to another, with an alcoholic father and a pretty disinterested mother, her one bright spot is her best friend, Heather. Except Heather’s gone and got herself a rubbish Italian boyfriend, who Birdy disapproves of. Not that he’s better than her manhang, but hey, that’s different because he doesn’t mean anything to her.

Heather has a summer job lined up as a sommelier in a ramshackle hotel in the highlands of Scotland, but she decides to go to Italy with Cristian, and asks Birdy to let them know she’s not making it. I’m not clear why - something about her not wanting to let them down, so she sends her flaky best friend to do it instead and she can’t make the call herself? As you can probably tell, I am not the biggest fan of this premise. It’s flimsy and sets them both up to be dislikable characters.

Following a series of hilarious misunderstandings and a drunken accident with a pyramid of vintage crystal wine glasses, Birdy finds herself stealing Heather’s identity and her job, and heading to Scotland.
There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment for books to be set in Scotland where the writers are not Scottish, and don’t appear to have even set foot in Scotland. As a Scot, this is a bit irritating. The place in the book doesn’t exist, she gets a taxi from Inverness when geographically it seems that it’s close enough to Skye to go for lunch, so over 100 miles away. A 100mile taxi ride? Birdy also talks about staying in the airport hotel at Inverness - I’ve been to that airport, there’s nothing there for miles. When the story is set in a recognisable world, with London and Plymouth and Norwich, why on earth would you ignore the Scottish geography? I found it to be really jarring.

Similarly, Birdy talks about growing up in Plymouth and hanging out at the harbour, on the beach - I grew up in Plymouth, and it doesn’t have a harbour you can hang out in. There’s the military base where the nuclear submarines are, the port where the ferries to Spain leave, and the Barbican, which is pretty but definitely not somewhere you rock up and pop your deckchair on. It’s weird. It’s bad luck for Lizzy Dent that I’ve lived in both Plymouth and Scotland, but worse that Birdy insults Norwich City’s cup achievements and I currently live there - I mean, what are the chances?

Birdy blags her way into the job, a high level, technical and difficult role, by gaslighting a young waitress into thinking she was learning on the job, by ‘testing’ her knowledge. She uses the alcoholic barman in what amounts to blackmail to stop him from telling anyone as he clocks her deception straight away, and she has an instant crush on three of the four men in the hotel. The love interest, by the way, should have been with someone else - he’s far too nice and good for Birdy, in my opinion. Ultimately, their relationship didn’t work, I wasn’t rooting for them.
She makes bad decisions one after the other - like running round the loch dressed in jeans and a raincoat, and needs to be rescued twenty minutes later because she’s so thirsty. Er, okay.

The hotel itself is actually not ramshackle and rundown, but an up and coming boutique place to eat, drink and stay. The underlying opinion from the English characters, that they’re surprised that Scotland has a ‘scene’ grated on me too. Birdy talks about getting influencers up from London to raise the profile. Who cares about London - what about Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow? Amazingly, Scotland is actually a country in its own right.
Like a bum note, the language is just a bit wrong on a number of occasions. A Scots character calls everyone ‘lass’ - it would likely be ‘lassie’ in Scotland, lass is much more Newcastle and Yorkshire dialect. Someone wears ‘plaid breeks’ - not likely, you’d never catch a Scot referring to it as anything other than tartan. ‘Tartan trews’ would have been fine. A bit of research would have sorted that out straightaway.

It’s not a terrible read - the plot clips along quite nicely after sagging a bit in the middle, and I liked the character of Irene although she doesn’t get a lot to do, really.
It did also make me want to actually try some of the wine we have in the cupboard, and learn a bit more about the grapes, history etc.

Ultimately - Birdy is not a nice character, she doesn’t have enough of a redemption arc to get a happy ending and I was not rooting for her.

If you want to read Scots literature, try out Irvine Welsh, or The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan. Iain Banks’ The Crow Road is stark but beautiful, and full of romance.

Oh Birdie!

I was feeling extremely anxious the entire time I was reading this - but I think that shows the incredible job Lizzy Dent has done at absolutely immersing you in the character of Birdie. I truly felt every emotion, every high and low, every little oh shit moment right in my gut.

I struggled with whether I liked Birdie as a character. Overall, maybe not for the first 3/4 of the book. It is a pretty terrible thing to do, and she was using the people around her to keep the con (and I suppose the reputation of her friend) going.

I did love her growth though, and her realisation that she did have talents and skills that could take her far if she went about them honestly.

I really enjoyed the light romance in here too.

This book has definitely cemented Lizzy Dent on my "insta-buy" authr

The Summer Job was an entertaining read. Birdie is at a crossroads in her life and feels like her life is going nowhere. She has a dead-end boyfriend and no job to speak of. Her best friend asks her to turn down a job for her as a sommelier, but in Birdie’s how hard can it be to learn wine and pair it? She gets more than she bargained for once she arrives at the restaurant. Everything Heather has worked for is on the line. Will Heather forgive her once she learns the truth? Has Birdie pushed things too far this time to earn her friends forgiveness?

This as an enjoyable read, however, a bit far-fetched at times. It was definitely a meet-cute read!

I would like to extend my gratitude to the author, publisher and NetGalley for sending me this advanced reader’s copy in return for a fair, frank, and honest review.

This was a cheesy rom-com book which was a pleasure to read. It was light-hearted and kept my attention. Enjoyed the characters, especially Birdy. Loved the description of Scotland too. If you want a book you can read in one sitting with a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate, then this is the book for you.

A fabulous, light summer rom-com with some serious undertones makes this a great all-rounder.
The main crux of the story is entirely predictable - as you expect out of this genre. However the introduction of alcoholism and the abuse Birdie suffered in her youth is not at all expected.
The characters are all wonderfully crafted. The setting is beautiful - I may be biased as I love that area of Scotland anyway! The author is so descriptive of people and places.
There's quite a few laugh out loud moments as well as moments of quite deep emotion.
The story was fast paced and kept me wanting to read more and more.
An excellent read.

this was a great book, funny, lots of one liners which was brill, great characters, liht hearted book and easy read.

Rating 3.5
Very cute, easy holiday read! Loved the setting of a fancy hotel in Scotland surrounded by woods and a cute little cottage. The story was a little predictable but still very enjoyable, I definitely got hooked. Birdy did annoy me a little but I liked the ending!

When 'Birdy' Finch's best friend Heather goes off with her lover she abandons the position of sommelier at a hotel in Scotland, leaving Birdy to let them know. After attending a wine tasting pretending to be her friend Birdy who is forever broke decides to pretend to be Heather- how hard can it be?

Fiction requites the suspension of belief, but this was a step too far. To be a sommelier is a highly technical job & Heather has obviously worked hard to get to where she is. Apart from ruining Heather's reputation how she ever though she'd pull it off I don't know. I gave up about a quarter of the way in before it annoyed me any further!

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book. Sorry it just wasn't one for me.

Thoroughly enjoyed this! Not sure what I expected at first but soon found myself completely hooked! Its a rare treat to find something that is beautifully written, poignant and very funny and this has it all.

Highly recommended and well deserves the 5 stars.

Thank you Penguin General UK and Netgalley.

This is a light fun summer read set in the Scottish Highlands.
Birdy has not much going for her in life right now with no job and no place to live. When her best friend, Heather decides to abandon her summer job as a sommelier in Scotland to follow a man to Italy, Birdy ends up pretending to be Heather. She heads to Scotland and bluffs her way through her job whilst flirting with the chef and exploring the countryside.
The setting is really beautiful and I would love to pack up and head to this place too. The cast of characters have lots of funny moments as well as many moments dealing with life's problems.
It was also interesting to see the inner workings of life as a sommelier because it seems like a pretty hard gig to be done right.
Thanks to Penguin General UK and Netgalley.com for my complimentary eARC copy.

Wow!

Thank you Penguin Random House UK for giving me the opportunity to read and review this amazing book!

This was an unexpected joyful and inspirational read.

Birdy wants to escape her humdrum life so takes on a job, in Scotland, meant for her best friend Heather, a sommelier, in a swanky hotel, that wasn’t the dive the website alluded to!
Keeping it a secret from Heather and all her co workers.
The hotel is set near a loch in Scotland and the scene is set for an idyllic location, amazing food, accompanying wines and lots of cringe worthy moments, laughter and tears as well as a handsome chef!