Lost: Tour, Review & Guest Post

Lost - Arielle Lockley #2
by Elle Field

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"I'm starting to realise that age is just a number, but Tabitha pointed out I'm only saying that because I'm twenty-five, engaged, and have my life together. (Touch wood things stay that way.)"  

Arielle is back! OK, she's not on her way to becoming the next Coco Chanel, her childhood dream, but she is one way step closer to running her very own shop with her business partner, Felicity. 

She's also planning her perfect romantic wedding to fiancé, Piers, and Arielle is starting to believe that she's finally found her place in the world... Of course life is never that straightforward. 

With a new-found foe interfering with her shop decisions, not to mention haughty wedding planners and loved ones facing personal struggles, will Arielle figure out what's important before all is lost? 

Out in Kindle and in paperback formats now. If you’ve not yet read Kept, the first book in the Arielle Lockley series, buy it here. 

Author Spotlight:

Elle Field lives in London with her boyfriend and their cat. She enjoys exploring new places, watching musicals on the West End, and eating her way around London’s culinary delights. 

Her first novel Kept was released in April 2013; Geli Voyante’s Hot or Not followed in October 2013. Lost, the sequel to Kept, is out now. Look out for the final book in the Arielle Lockley series, Found, towards the end of the year. 

Kept * Geli Voyante’s Hot or Not * Lost

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I received a copy in exchange for an honest review!
What I say: *Note* There may be spoilers from book one Kept (review here) - read on at your own peril... 
Lost is the second in Elle Field's chick-lit series focusing on the life of fashion forward Arielle Lockley. In Kept we met Arielle and Piers as they fell in love and fought to stay together. We met their hilarious friends and family; Obelix 'Ob' will always be my favourite, although I'm still not sure exactly how to pronounce his name. 
When we catch up with Arielle in Lost (remember it's Arielle, NOT Ariel! Any mention of mermaids will place you firmly in the doghouse) she's a very different character to the girl we met at the beginning of the first book, but in a good way. This Arielle is more mature and settled, yet she retains enough of her kookiness to still be the same girl who made me laugh so much the first time.
Arielle is stressed. Not only is she busy trying to expand the business with Felicity, which proves a huge challenge in itself, but she's also planning a wedding. This being Arielle, nothing goes as smoothly as it should. After only a few pages I was laughing at her antics and misfortune (I'm kind like that). In the shop hunting chapter I was almost screeching "don't do it". 
I kept thinking surely she's going to realise certain things aren't what they seem. I wanted her to open her eyes, but her flighty obliviousness is what made her so amusing in Kept but it was interesting to see her trying to become more aware and mature now. A lot of the times, she definitely succeeds in her efforts, although there are of course, a few key moments when she really didn't notice something that I thought was really obvious.
Some of the story was sadder and more serious than I had expected, but I felt these moments made sense with the story. The characters are all maturing and so they deal with more mature issues.
I really enjoyed this instalment, although I wasn't expecting the ending and considered doing a Joey from F.R.I.E.N.D.S and putting my kindle in the freezer at one point. When I wrote my review for Kept it was probably one of the first chick-lit books I had really paid attention to. Now I read a lot more of this genre because I enjoy the drama chick-lit often provides.
4 Happy Stars in my Sky!

Guest Post - Elle on Arielle and Fashion:

I can remember as a very impressionable eleven year old watching the film Clueless in awe, especially the scene at the beginning where Cher is using her computer to pick out her school clothes. OK, I was a few years too young to dress like she did, plus I had to wear a school uniform so was spared the of agony of wanting to look cool vs. the reality of what my wardrobe actually consisted of, but at university I was very much like how Arielle was in Kept.

I loved choosing my outfits, pouring over fashion magazines, and even picking up a needle and thread to customise my jeans. Like Arielle, I also had expensive taste. I thought nothing of spending £600 on a pair of limited edition Dolce & Gabbana jeans encrusted with Swarovski crystals – that was the sale price, too(!) – not to mention buying Louis Vuitton handbags with matching purses.

But, there’s a stark difference between me in 2007 when the first draft of Kept was written and me in 2014 when the first draft of Lost was written, and that difference is also reflected in Arielle. Fashion and spending silly money on clothes isn’t important to me at all nowadays, and Arielle is starting to think that way, too.

Just as the fashion industry has evolved – ten years ago you would have never seen ‘ordinary’ non-industry people on the front row, yet today you often find big name fashion bloggers sat next to the likes of Anna Wintour – Arielle’s fashion journey is also evolving. In Lost, she’s introduced to the world of fashion blogging, and that’s definitely going to become more relevant in Found, the third and final book in the Arielle Lockley series.  

Nowadays, I don’t know what is in fashion off the top of my head because I no longer follow fashion slavishly. Whenever I feel a scene needs a bit of Arielle’s fashion knowledge to set the tone, I pour over fashion magazines, as well as online articles, photos and videos from the various fashion weeks to make sure that what the characters are wearing is on trend. Pinterest is another great source for inspiration, as are fashion blogs.

Having a previous interest in fashion has certainly made it easier to write the Arielle Lockley books – after all, they say write what you know – but I’m looking forward to the fun of writing about something I don’t know about and researching it extensively.

Are you a fan of books that have fashion weaved throughout them? 

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