Carrie Goes Off the Map by Phillipa Ashley
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Release Date: 1st December 2011
Rating: 5/5
Source: Received from the publisher for review. Thank you!
Buy: Amazon UK | Amazon US | BookDepository
Publishers Summary:

Carrie Brownhill lets her best friend talk her into a scenic European road trip as the perfect getaway from a nasty breakup with her fiancé. Unexpectedly along for the ride is the gorgeous and intriguing Matt Landor, MD, who sorely tests Carrie’s determination to give up men altogether. Careening through the English countryside in a VW camper van, these two mismatched but perfectly attuned lonely hearts find themselves in hot pursuit of adventure and in uncharted territory altogether…

Life was set, planned and charted for Carrie Brownhill. The love of her life, Huw, and her were set to be married but only four weeks before their wedding date he calls it off to suddenly be married to someone completely different only a few months later. Shocked and confused Carrie decides the perfect solution is a caravan trip with her best friend Rowena, but that falls through as well. Faced with the option of sulking around for the next month or taking along the handsome yet annoying Matt Landor she opts for the adventure of a lifetime and ends up with more than she bargains for. What results is a road trip neither Carrie nor Matt will ever forget.

Sometimes you simply need a good solidly funny book with great characters and a little romance. Carrie Goes Off the Map was exactly that for me. Having recently suffered from a bit of a reading slump I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read Phillipa Ahsley’s latest. I’ve had a number of her books sitting on my shelves now for a while, but haven’t had the time to pick them up and now I feel like I’ve done myself a disservice. Phillipa knows how to write! Her characters were so easy to relate to and the story had moments that gave me those little butterflies because of the sheer happiness in the scene. I loved it! Even now, days after reading it, I’m still grinning at how things all turned out.

First of all, Carrie. Oh my, Carrie Brownhill is quite the character. Admittedly there were times, many times, during reading the book that I wanted to reach out and scream at her. Oddly enough it wasn’t so much in her “moping” period just after having lost her fiance, because for me that was perfectly understandable and it also didn’t seem to go on for a long time. What made me frustrated with her was her lack of ability to see what was right in front of her, Matt. His character was perfect. Not that he was this unrealistic perfect guy that couldn’t truly exist, but that he was very honest and real. Now, I do have to say that by the end of the book I can see why there were so many times that Carrie just didn’t get things and I’m happy she didn’t because the book would have been much shorter and more boring had she just “figured it all out” to begin with. And let me say…the ending is perfect!

Also, this is the perfect road trip book! If you’re not one for road trips you may even end up liking this one because they don’t spend all of their time on the road. Much of the time is spent at different beach locations along the English countryside and for someone who’s never visited, it was incredibly easy to imagine. With at least two or three stop offs on their trip there were a wide enough variety of characters that you didn’t get bored of Carrie and Matt squabbling off and on, but you also had enough angst of wanting to see them finally get together. Overall it was just the right balance of travel, characters and interaction.

Carrie Goes Off the Map by Phillipa Ashley is the perfect read for Chick Lit fans. Filled with characters that make you laugh, cringe and even get excited about it simply is a fantastic read! Carrie’s journey with Matt Landor begins as something she absolutely loathes and by the end turns into a relationship that has readers hoping will end amazingly. And it absolutely does! This was a book that got me out of a reading slump and back into a grove primarily because the writing was so good. Carrie Goes Off the Map is a hilarious and heartwarming road trip that readers won’t soon forget!