Review: '#Love London - The Complete Collection' by Nikki Moore (2015)

Six couples. One city. A year to remember.
Now you can get all of Nikki Moore’s gorgeously romantic stories from the #LoveLondon series in one book! This is THE book to fall in love with …
Includes the short stories: Skating at Somerset House New Year at the Ritz Valentine’s on Primrose Hill Cocktails in Chelsea Strawberries at Wimbledon
and the full length novel: Picnics in Hyde Park
London is undoubtedly one of my favourite cities in the whole world. It really is a magical place and I’ll never say no to a trip to visit the city, even if it’s just for a day. So, when I first heard about Nikki Moore’s short story collection focusing on London, I immediately knew this was going to be a book I wanted to check out. When the separate short stories were released by publisher Harper Impulse I unfortunately never managed to get any review copies, but when the complete collection appeared on NetGalley, I was one of the lucky reviewers to get a review copy. Unfortunately, it took me way too long to finally sit down with this particular read, but as I’m now slowly coming towards the end of my TBR-list, I finally had a chance to check out this lovely London collection…!
The ’#Love London’ collection is an anthology of author Nikki Moore’s writing and the thing all stories have in common is that they’re all set in the lovely city of London. As we are invited to check out short stories ‘Skating at Somerset House’, ‘New Year at the Ritz’, ‘Valentine’s on Primrose Hill’, ‘Cocktails in Chelsea’ and ‘Strawberries at Wimbledon’, we meet several characters, visit different sides of London, and experience different festive times of the year, including Christmas and Valentine’s Day. After these five short stories, there is also a full-length novel included in the collection, namely ‘Picnics in Hyde Park’, which focuses on yet another set of characters, but also brings back some of the characters we’ve already had the pleasure of meeting along the way. A great collection for any chick lit/romantic comedy fan, especially if you have a soft spot for the UK capital…!
From her ‘#Love London’ collection it straight away becomes clear that author Nikki Moore has quite a bit of knowledge to share when it comes to some special places in the wonderful city that is London, but also knows how to tell a captivating romantic story. I loved all these different short stories, set in the same city, but all focusing on a different time of year, a different collection of characters and a different captivating storyline. The fact that the stories are set in London gives them that extra special something, and I loved visiting Wimbledon, Somerset House, the Ritz, Primrose Hill… I also really enjoyed getting to know all the characters and I love short stories, because they’re great when you’re commuting or have a free hour all of a sudden. 
With more than 550 pages, the collection is quite a long read. While I really enjoyed the short stories, I struggled a bit with the full-length novel, ‘Picnics in Hyde Park.’ I think this would have perhaps also worked better as a short story, because it seemed quite slow-paced and just didn’t grab my attention as much as the short stories did. If I have to choose a favourite, it has to be a tie between ‘Skating at Somerset House’ and ‘Strawberries at Wimbledon’, which I can both highly recommend. I’m really glad I got the chance to be introduced to author Nikki Moore’s writing and I am curious to see what the future will bring. All in all, Nikki Moore’s ‘#Love London Collection’ is a great collection of short stories; quite a long read, but one which I’m sure many chick lit & London fans will thoroughly enjoy.

Rating:8/10

  For more information about this book: Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Goodreads
Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review.