A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak, by Laura Taylor-Namey, (Sept. 2023, Atheneum Books for Young Readers), $19.99, ISBN: 9781665915335
Ages 12+
I am a latecomer to this one – my 2023 was a case study in “my spirit was willing but my reading ability was weak” – but you don’t need to be! Flora is grieving. Her mother has died after a long illness, and her grief is mixed with the guilt of feeling that she wasn’t there when her family needed her most. Overwhelmed by her emotions, and her family, who expects her to take on a greater role in their tea shop, she escapes to Miami, where she stays with soon-to-be sister-in-law Lila and her family. She accidentally ends up in the orbit of influencer Baz Marín, and finds that she’s caught between feelings Baz and one of her best friends, Gordon. Namey writes a moving meditation on grief and all the emotions that swirl – like a hurricane – inside those coping with it. The love triangle injects a little spark into the YA romance. A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak is the companion novel to 2020’s A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, which was a Reese Witherspoon pick. A good purchase for YA romance collections and where the first novel did well.
Mom Read It 