I think I liked this one even more than A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. This is a companion to that book.

Flora's mother recently passed away and she's having a hard time dealing with it. When a secret finally comes out, she leaves her family notes and goes to stay in Miami. Her best friend Gordon confessed to having feelings for her and it freaked her out. She meets a young influencer in Miami and they get along well. Baz is helping her with her photography and she's helping him with an issue he's having. There are times when she thinks she likes Baz as more than a friend, but then Gordon pops into her head. She starts seeing him differently. Flora spends her time helping for a wedding and taking photos. She has to figure out her future schooling plans and it's all too much for her. She loses control often and has a temper. Her grandma (?) once called her a hurricane and she believes that's what she is. And then a real hurricane hits Miami.

This book is full of food that will make you hungry and a wonderful family that is welcoming to everyone. I loved the descriptions of Miami and the architecture. I loved the photography too.

I gave this book 4 1/2 stars rounded up to 5 on Goodreads.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my earc.

I absolutely loved A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow so getting to read a book that focused on one of my favorite side characters was a real treat. This book was a lot more serious than I was expecting, but in a good way. Flora’s grief about her mother’s passing and how she handles her pain (or rather doesn’t handle it) were done so well. I loved Flora’s growth during the book. She was still Flora, full of vim and vigor, but she definitely grew up in this book and figured out how to let people love and support her. There was plenty of humor, especially when Gordon is around. He was such a delight. And I loved how the Reyes family just completely took Flora in and cared for her as if she was their own. Also, I loved Baz and Flora’s friendship, although I do wish there was more going on with the fake dating situation. That seemed to be not as developed as it could have been and felt a bit out of place. But overall, this was a really cute and heartfelt YA novel. I definitely recommend reading A Cuban Girl’s guide first so you have more context, but you don’t necessarily have to in order to understand this one on its own.


Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, and its companion/sequel, A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak is everything I could have hoped for.

There’s something so special about a book in a series series that explores the point of view of a different character than the previous book. I loved Flora when I read A Cuban Girl’s Guide, so I relished the chance to dive into her story. Of course, Flora’s story absolutely paralells Lila’s. Both of them leave their home in order to process grief and explore thier art.

I appreciated the centering of all different kinds of love in this story. Of course, there is the familial love between Flora and her dad and brother. Lila’s family also takes Flora in with so much warmth and selflessness. Lastly, friendships are incredibly central to this story. All of these different relationships are tested and healed in a beautiful way throughout this story.

I wish the reader got to see more of Gordon throughout this story. It’s clear how deeply Flora cares about Gordon, but he feels removed for much of the story. Even though he makes his way to Florida from England, he is in the Keys rather than in Miami with Florida. When he does make his way to Miami, it feels like his interactions with Flora are very distant. Of course, they are working on figuring out their relationship, but I wanted more.

One of my favorite elements of this book is its use of the fake dating trope. When Flora agrees to pretend to date Baz, I had a certain expectation of how their relationship would play out. I really love Baz and the way in which he encourages Flora to explore her art and the way he takes care of her through her first hurricane. Without spoiling too much, I will say that this story subverted my expectations, and I loved that.

I’m hoping that Namey Taylor continues this series, because I am eager to continue journeying with these characters. They have so much warmth and heart, and the stories are so cathartic.

"A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak" by Laura Taylor Namey is a touching and relatable coming-of-age story that tugs at the heartstrings. Flora's journey of self-discovery after her mother's passing is beautifully portrayed, and readers will find themselves engrossed in her emotional turmoil.

The decision to escape to Miami unveils a new world for Flora, and her encounters with Baz and Gordon add layers of complexity to the narrative. The author's descriptive prose brings Winchester and Miami to life, immersing readers in the contrasting settings.

While the book stands strong on its own, those who loved "A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow" may draw comparisons. Although I enjoyed this book, the first one remains my favorite.

Overall, "A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak" earns four stars for its compelling portrayal of grief, love, and the challenges of growing up. Laura Taylor Namey's storytelling prowess shines through, leaving a lasting impression on readers' hearts.

Flora Maxwell has her world turned upside down after her mother’s death. Winchester, England no longer feels like the home she once loved. Despite the familial pressure to go to a university in order to take a more prominent role in her family’s tea-shop business, Flora feels herself needing to break away. Labeled as a “hurricane” by her family, she decides to run off to Miami, Florida without a word to her family. Flora hopes to use this time away to figure out what she wants to do with her life and handle her grief. With photography being her only comfort, she finds her time in Miami will lead her into a whirlwind of events; from being caught up in photography influencer Baz Marín’s world to suddenly seeing her best friend Gordan Wallace, an aspiring architect, in a different light. Will Flora find her way through the hurricane and heartbreak that is her life?

A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak is an enthralling young adult novel that explores grief, romance, and family in such an intricate way. Namey manages to handle the sensitive topic of dementia, grief, and the ripples they create in loved ones’ lives in both a heartbreaking and soothing manner. Reading Flora tackle the fallout of her mother’s dementia/death and seeing her grow from being a “hurricane of pain” to a hopeful young woman was very gratifying. I found myself drawn to Flora and how she saw the world, which the author illustrated through photography metaphors. While the romance and humor were something that made reading the book enjoyable, I really loved seeing the family dynamics come to play. The way Namey incorporated Cuban tight-knit family culture through the Reyes family in contrast to the Maxwell’s really helped to hone in the emphasis on love and community. If readers take one thing away from this book, it’s the fact that no matter how alone or isolated you feel, you will always find people that care and love you!

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m often drawn to grief storylines, and that I loved A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, so it’s no surprise that A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak was one of my most anticipated reads of 2023. Set three years after A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak follows Flora, Orion’s sister, as she navigates life after her mother’s passing. With university on the horizon, Flora’s on a deadline to decide what career pathway she wants to pursue, all while trying to draft a speech for her mother’s memorial. When everything ends up being too much, she finds herself fleeing to Miami and hiding out with Lila’s family until Lila’s sister’s wedding.

I was already pretty fond of Flora in A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, when we were introduced to her as a messy hurricane of a girl who was struggling with her mother’s illness, but I really grew to love her in A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak. I loved how Flora’s character was unapologetically messy, and how despite all her faults, she was given the grace to fix her mistakes. A British Girl’s Guide is less focused on Flora’s faults and the hurricane that is Flora (as her loved ones refer to her), as it is her mending the aftermath of the wreckage. Throughout A British Girl’s Guide, I constantly just felt like giving Flora a hug. Transitional periods in life are never fun, and I felt like Flora had a tendency to be too hard on herself a lot of the time. She needed space and needed to get away, and maybe she didn’t go about it in the best way, but I felt like the way she beat herself up about it was a little unwarranted.

Laura Taylor Namey’s depiction of grief resonated with me back then with A Cuban Girl’s Guide and did the same with A British Girl’s Guide. There’s no one way to grieve, and each person experiences grief differently and that really shone through in A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak. One of my favorite things, aside from the grief depiction, was how the characters talked about their grief, and how that seeped into all of their interactions.

Normally, I’m not really a fan of love triangles, but there was something about the love triangle here that really worked for me. I think it was the way each party communicated, as well as the fact that it was pretty predictable from the get go. And the tropes involved being some of my favorites didn’t hurt either. Both Baz and Gordon were so sweet, and I found their dynamics with Flora to be so interesting.

I particularly loved the setting of A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak. Given that we spent so much time in London in A Cuban Girl’s Guide, and we knew so much about Orion’s family and Lila’s British family, it only felt fair for us to spend the majority of Flora’s book with Lila’s family, in Lila’s hometown. It made me appreciate both families more, and I really enjoyed spending time with Lila’s family in this one. The time spent with Lila’s family also put me in the mood to reread A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, so I’m sure that’ll happen soon.

Wow, this book! I requested this one on NetGalley simply because my career revolves around hurricanes, so I love any book that features them. But this book ended up completely stealing my heart and making me cry on a Saturday morning!

A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak is a sweet, charming YA read about Flora, a young British girl with a hot temper and little emotional regulation (relatableeee). She only feels like she can cope if she’s behind a camera, filtering and controlling the world around her.

After some gut-wrenching drama she can’t quite process, Flora flees to Miami to stay with family. And it’s there that she truly finds herself and realizes that’s she has a family filled with understanding people who love her exactly as she is. And did I mentioned there’s a sweet young love story tossed in too? I can’t say any more for fear of spoilers, so all I’ll say is: read this book!!

I love all things Laura Taylor Namey. A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow? Worshipped it. The Library of Lost Things? Huge fan.

So I went into A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak with the highest of hopes. And I was honestly (and surprisingly) a little let down.

Set a few years in the future from the timing of Lila’s story, the book follows Orion’s sister Flora, who, in a moment of angst, ends up escaping from her U.K.-sized troubles to Miami. There, through the lens of a camera focused on others, and thanks to the support of friends new and old, Flora learns more about herself, and ultimately who she wants to be.

First, the good. As someone who spent most of my childhood in South Florida, I fell quickly for the Miami-based setting in Flora’s story. Namey does a fantastic job capturing the essence of the city in a way only a local knows how, while simultaneously giving it a fresh perspective, as if it’s being experienced for the very first time. In so many ways, this is a love letter to Miami and Cuban-American culture and that alone makes this book worth celebrating.

There’s also this crucial component of the text that centers on the unpredictability and awe-inspiringly destructive power of disaster events like hurricanes, that I think anyone could appreciate in this day and age — longtime FL resident, or no.

Plus, it’s actually a dream to reunite with the OG MC’s, Lila and Orion! (We love their love!)

Now for the parts that gave me pause. Number one: I’m not totally sure what to make of Flora’s arc in the story. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for flawed, chaotic, genuinely *human* protagonists, but I’m confused about some of the plot devices introduced to fuel her character development. Largely, it felt like much of the book was spent on Flora’s tendency to — sometimes unfairly — punish herself for her past mistakes. (This part was SUPER relatable, and I appreciated its inclusion, but also wished more time could have been spent on her healing, and that the people in her life could have been more understanding about what she’d been through.)

***SOME SPOILERS AHEAD***

Flora keeps telling herself, and everyone around her, that she is a human hurricane — hence, in part, the book’s title — but I found myself confused over whether her actions really justified that kind of dialogue. Too often throughout the book, I found myself wishing that someone would stop Flora when she talked so harshly about herself, and instead remind her that making mistakes and being lost is just part of being human and the different journeys we all take to figure out what’s ahead.

Which brings me to the other pivotal plot point that I struggled with wrapping my head around: The blow-up fight between Flora and her family/Lila. What this resulted in made little sense to me. Why would people who love Flora, like her family and Lila clearly do, get so upset at her for grieving such an important loss in the way she did? Sure, the decisions she made in the moment and leading up to it weren’t the best, or most thoughtful, but that kind of reaction from her dad, Orion and Lila was so jarring to me, especially when considering they come from characters who are otherwise portrayed as really empathic. Everyone reacts to loss differently, and I guess I just really struggle with the idea of shutting someone you love out — and ignoring their many apologies after the fact — just because they’re clearly hurting differently than you are.

(Coming back to this a bit after finishing the book, I still feel like they all did Flora a bit wrong with responding the way they did when she revealed what had actually happened, which she shares in the moment is something that has been heavily weighing on her. Of course, she shouldn’t have made that decision to escape her responsibilities with no thought to the consequences, but Flora does quickly acknowledge she did wrong there, and apologizes for it to the people she hurt; which is more that can be said for the bulk of her family’s communications with her for most of the story.)

Otherwise, the romance in A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak was slow-burn sizzling and absolutely lovely. Also worth noting that Namey’s writing was arguably at its finest here. (Case in point: The parallels she draws between actual hurricanes and Flora’s inner turmoil are just magnificently done.)

All in all, despite those plot/character development drawbacks, this sequel was a joy to read. I can’t wait for the next one.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc.*

Laura Taylor Namey does it again in this novel, it was a great companion book to A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. It had everything that I enjoyed from the first book and glad the author continued in this world. The characters were what I was looking for and it was everything that I wanted.

This book was a pleasure to read! For one, the references to weather and hurricanes were accurate, instead of being dramatic for the sake of the story like is sometimes done. (I'm a meteorologist, what can I say.) I think for a while Gordan was my favorite character. Though I understand the grief and choices Flora made, I occasionally wanted to fight her. I think the journey of her learning to deal with her grief and also find her passion is a really important one. I also likes the inclusion of different cultures in the south FL area and the way they accept Flora and Gordan into their craziness. Overall, a really cute and good story. Very heartwarming by the end.

I loved A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow and this one with recurring characters was a great follow up book.
I liked Flora, I understand her grief, as I lost a parent before their time. I felt that she has a hard time dealing with everything and she does take off, but sometimes a change of scenery is just the thing that is needed.
I liked Baz a lot, I liked that they clashed, but then figured out how to work together.
I love Lila's family and how welcoming and open they are.
The food descriptions throughout are wonderful, just like they were in Namey's other book.
This is a lovely book that deals with grief and loss. Teens will like this one even if they haven't read Namey's other book, but I highly recommend they go read it too.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

Flora became a hurricane, her emotions stormy and her actions occasionally out of control, when her mother was diagnosed with early-onset dementia and then died in Flora's teens. But as she faces the prospect of university and taking on a larger role in her family's tea shop, Flora feels the need to escape. She knows she has broken her relationships with her father, her brother and his girlfriend Lila, and even with her best friend Gordon (when he sort of confessed to having feelings for her). So when everything feels like it has fallen apart, Flora changes her plane ticket to Miami (for Lila's sister's wedding) and leaves early, flying away to another country without a word.

Within the safe embrace of Lila's loving family, Flora begins to explore Miami through the lens of her trusty camera. When she finds a gorgeous photo of a thunderstorm at a local craft fair, she traces its origin to a local photography studio, where she meets the photographer's son Baz. Though they clash at first, they find a way to help each other out: he'll take photos of the wedding (after the original photographer fell through) if Flora will fake-date him to get his parents off his back. But when Gordon unexpectedly shows up en route to an architectural internship nearby, Flora finds herself ill-equipped to deal with her own storms.

I really enjoyed Namey's previous book featuring some of these characters, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, so I was excited to return to that world. Flora is a tough character to appreciate at first: you can sympathize with her grief and the way she feels lost and aimless, but the way she tends to react with anger and to sabotage her relationships, while very realistic, makes her a little less likable. The hurt and anger she leaves in her wake is something she has to learn to accept and to make amends for, and it definitely takes her time to grow and find redemption.

Baz was a terrific character: a little unyielding at first, but gradually willing to help Flora with her photography and offering a solid connection. I appreciated how he contributed to Flora's cultural awareness and education, not just regarding the Cuban community but also as an American and a Floridian used to hurricanes. And his insightful pushback to some of Flora's reactions were critical to her growth. Gordon was a sweetheart of a character, understanding Flora and calling her out as needed, though he occasionally managed to sabotage himself as well as Flora did. I'm not always a big fan of love triangles, but since I enjoyed all three of these characters AND the friendships extended in all ways between them, I was more than happy to see how their relationships developed.

Other highlights: the warmth and caring of Lila's family, the humor of the chisme network at La Paloma, the descriptions of the Cuban food, the all-around support between characters (even between rivals).

A thoroughly enjoyable read, especially after A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. 4 stars.

Thank you, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley, for providing an eARC of this book. Opinions expressed here are solely my own.