Book Review: "Chasing Daisy" by Paige Toon

If you fall too fast, you just might crash...Daisy has been dumped, unceremoniously jilted. Not by any ordinary guy, no...Daisy has a secret in her past that she won't even tell her best friend, Holly. She's given up on men - and on her own family. But life still has to be lived and where better to recover than as far away from home as possible. Grabbing a chance to see the world, Daisy packs her bags and joins the team catering to the world's highest-paid, supercharged racing drivers on the Formula 1 Grand Prix circuit. From Brazil to Italy, from Melbourne to Monte Carlo, life passes in a dizzying whirlwind. But nothing - and no one - can stop Daisy from falling again...this time for a man who is prepared to risk his life, and his heart, for the sake of speed, danger and ultimate success.

This book was an unexpected delight for me. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. It's chick lit with a F1 racing thrown in. I'm a NASCAR fan so reading about Formula 1 racing is a bit boring to me since I don't really understand it. It's got a sparkly cover, but it's heartbreaking at times. Pretty much everything you expected from the book didn't happen and things you never saw coming did.

From the beginning of the book, it felt like this was going to be your everyday British chick lit that had a foul mouth character who did whatever she felt like because she was a rich spoiled princess. However we soon find out that even though Daisy has more than enough money to comfortably live, she CHOOSES to work in the hospitality department of an F1 racing team. It puts a unique spin on your run of the mill chick lit story. Daisy's unrequited crush on Will seems that it will follow the predicable path all romances in chick lit take. Instead, there's a dramatic twist that shakes up not only the characters in the story but the reader as well. I was surprised at the serious direction the book headed in at times. From the cover and the first half of the book, one would expect it to be fluffy chick lit, brainless reading, candy for the mind. However there's a lot to tackle in this book. Daisy's relationship with her parents is a huge storyline in this book. I felt for her, that she could never have the relationship with her father that she had always wanted. Also I really enjoyed reading about her bond with her grandmother. It was good that she had at least one person in her family who did care about her.

Overall I was really pleased with this book. Not only was it a fun, entertaining and thoughtful read but I learned a lot about the "other" type of car racing as well. I'll be looking forward to picking up the rest of the author's books and seeing if they will give me the same feeling as this one did as well.

Chasing Daisy by Paige Toon is published by Pocket Books (2009)

This review copy was provided by the publisher.