Review: Love, Lucas by Chantele Sedgwick

Love, Lucas by Chantele Sedgwick

Publication Date: May 5, 2015

Publisher: Sky Pony Press

Review Copy from Edelweiss

A powerful story of loss, second chances, and first love, reminiscent of Sarah Dessen and John Green.

When Oakley Nelson loses her older brother, Lucas, to cancer, she thinks she’ll never recover. Between her parents’ arguing and the battle she’s fighting with depression, she feels nothing inside but a hollow emptiness. When Mom suggests they spend a few months in California with Aunt Jo, Oakley isn’t sure a change of scenery will alter anything, but she’s willing to give it a try.

In California, Oakley discovers a sort of safety and freedom in Aunt Jo’s beach house. Once they’re settled, Mom hands her a notebook full of letters addressed to her—from Lucas. As Oakley reads one each day, she realizes how much he loved her, and each letter challenges her to be better and to continue to enjoy her life. He wants her to move on.

If only it were that easy.

But then a surfer named Carson comes into her life, and Oakley is blindsided. He makes her feel again. As she lets him in, she is surprised by how much she cares for him, and that’s when things get complicated. How can she fall in love and be happy when Lucas never got the chance to do those very same things?

With her brother’s dying words as guidance, Oakley knows she must learn to listen and trust again. But will she have to leave the past behind to find happiness in the future?

My Thoughts:

Love, Lucas by Chantele Sedgwick is not the first, and probably won’t be the last, time I come across a book about a young character going through the emotions caused by the death of a sibling. What made me intrigued was the idea of the letters left by the sibling to be used as a sort of guidepost to life after the enormous loss. Unfortunately very quickly I realized that Love, Lucas did not include the emotional punch I was expecting but rather left me feeling quite disappointed and somewhat annoyed.

Oakley has lost her brother Lucas to cancer. About two weeks after the death she travels to California with her mother to visit her aunt Jo. There she meets Carson, this supposedly sweet and funny guy that very quickly seems to take her focus away from her grief. A bunch of misunderstandings and overly melodramatic events follow and the book ends with a ridiculous accident that just ended up taking all credibility away from the book in my eyes.

Throughout this book, I desperately wanted to like Oakley and feel for her, but the more and more I kept reading, the more annoyed I got with her. She’s one of those very cliche, clumsy, “I am very bad with guys” types that categorizes herself as a “dork” just because she sometimes says the wrong time at the wrong time or because she was in the swim team in high school (aren’t athletes supposed to be “not dorks?”). She also uses the word “cute” A LOT and seems to think very little of herself. For example, after crying about her brother, she is embarrassed because she looks like “a monster” and she does not want Carson to see her like that. In general, she is annoyingly superficial and just seems much younger than she is stated to be in the book (she’s 17 but for most of the time she acts like she’s 13). She has gone through a horrible tragedy, but the way she deals with it just did not make me feel sympathy in any way.

For about half of the book I thought Carson was alright but then there was this one scene that just completely ruined him for me. Basically, after Oakley tells him about Lucas, he is first all sympathetic and understanding. Then Oakley goes to wipe away her “monstrous” tears and kind of fakes a smile just to show that she’s done with speaking about her brother to which Carson responds by saying that Oakley has a “beautiful smile” and that “she should smile more often”. WHAT? She has just told that she has lost her brother recently and you tell her to smile more often. MAYBE SHE DOES NOT FEEL LIKE SMILING? AND FIRST OF ALL, SHE WOULDN’T HAVE TO SMILE EVEN IF NOTHING BAD WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. God, this got me riled up.

About 80% into the book there is this SUPER CLICHE accident in the book that just hit the final nail to the casket. Seriously, melodrama to the top.

In general, this book read like a very cliche TV movie. I feel like the events unfolded way too quickly - just a couple of weeks after losing her brother Oakley is already traipsing around the beach and crushing on boys. PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM NOT SAYING THAT SHE SHOULD GRIEF FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE. I am just staying that her actions do not fit her thoughts at all.

The letters from Lucas are one of the strongest parts of the book at first, but I feel like they start to repeat themselves as the novel develops and in the end, I did not really feel for Lucas that much either. I hope this review does not make me sound like I’m heartless or anything, but really, it just didn’t make me feel anything at all. 

One Snowflake

Review: Not Your Average Fairy Tale by Chantele Sedgwick

Not Your Average Fairy Tale 

by Chantele Sedgwick 

Publisher-Crescent Moon Press

Released-Aug 1st 2012

Purchase-Amazon / B & N

Armed with wings and a blue wand, being a fairy godmother should be easy ... unless your name is Ash, and you're a dude.
Ash Summerland has it all–good looks, popularity, and the best grades at The Academy of Magical Beings. Ready to complete his last assignment in order to graduate, Ash is confident he will get the apprenticeship he wants. When he opens the letter from the Council, he is shocked to discover he has been assigned to apprentice Lady Shenelle, Keeper of Happy Endings. A.K.A. the head fairy godmother. Ash is forced to grant three wishes to a troubled human girl named Kendall, and ultimately give her a "happy ever after". But Kendall turns out to be more than he bargained for. Still grieving over her father's death, Kendall doesn't want anything to do with him. And worst of all, she doesn't believe in happy endings.

My Thoughts:
Ash Summerland is pumped! Soon he'll be graduating at the top of his class after all his hard work at the academy, he's finally going to get his just reward by earning himself the dream apprentice job he's always wanted. So when he opens his golden letter from The Magical Being Academy and sees that he's working for Lady Shenelle he's thinking that there has to be some mistake or quite possibly a joke. A Fairy Godmother? But...he's a dude! There has never been a male fairy godmother in the history of the academy, so...why now?
Frustrated and a very pissed off Ash tries to figure out what's going on, but the council has all decided that this experience will be good for him and he may just learn something from it. He just has to hang on long enough to complete one assignment. Grant three wishes to a human girl and he'll be able to graduate and move on to better positions. So what happens when his assignment proves to be most difficult and doesn't even believe in happy endings? Or even worse, what happens when he actually starts to care about her?


Ha!! What a fun fun story!! Not Your Average Fairy Tale really took me by surprise. This was such an entertaining and creative concept that put a brilliant spin to some of my favorite elements. Magic and fairy tale beings. As soon as I read the blurb for this book, I knew that I wanted to read it, I just didn't think I'd have this much fun! 


Magic, mystery, romance, colorful characters and a wicked twist in the end, this book has Disney written all over it! I could totally see this on the big screen. Kudos to Chantele Sedgwick's writing! It's smooth, confident and consuming. I was constantly and instantly entertained from minute one!

I really adored every single one of these characters. Even the bad dudes. Each of them played their roles fantastically, bringing in so much thrill, surprises and laughter.

Poor poor Ash, he really took the news hard when he found out that he was going to be ~gasp~ a fairy godmother. It's a pride thing, a male thing, a 'I'm not wearing no dame tights and tu-tu' thing. His pouting ways were quite adorable and hilarious and it was amazingly fun to watch him squirm his way through this assignment. To add insult (girly wings and a blue wand) to injury, Ash also learns that his class rival, Dax got the apprentice position that he was aiming for and makes sure to rub it in his face at any given hour.

All Ash wants to do is get this stupid assignment done and over with and move on, but when Kendall starts to get under his skin, making him question everything that he's ever wanted, we see a new side to Ash that readers will cheer for!

I really liked Kendall, she's been having a hard time every since she lost her father in an accident, leaving her alive but badly scarred. She feels responsible and blames herself for what happened. She's lost the will to feel normal or be normal. So it's not really a surprise when she fist meets Ash and thinks he's some nut job. I mean, who would believe that this gorgeous guy is a fairy godmother who could grant her three wishes. But once she finally does believe it's pretty funny to see these two banter their way to a growing friendship. She can totally handle her own and has a mean arm to prove it. 

Also, a big shout out to Sam and Ellie, they were two of my favorite characters besides Ash and Kendall.

The story line has a little bit of everything. Fun filled magic, a sweet sweet romance that's perfect in the way true love and fairy tales were meant to be, secrets waiting to be revealed, betrayal and revenge and an evil sinister plot taking it's time to fester before it strikes.

Overall, I absolutely had a blast with this book. It's warm and sweet and really quite precious. I can't wait to buy myself a copy to add to my collection! I'm also guessing by the ending that we're getting more, which would be amazing! I can't wait to see what happens to Ash and Kendall next!! 

Big thanks to Chantele Sedgwick for sharing her story with us. Loved it!!

Find the author:

Goodreads / Website

                                                                    4.5 Snowflakes