Customer Reviews

Pillow Talk

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Petra Flint is a jeweler living in a shabby flat in London. She is quite happily creating her beautiful wearable works of art and semi-happy with her emotionally stunted boyfriend, Rob. They are polar opposites in most respects but Petra seems determined to find the knight in shining armor behind Rob's distant demeanor and seemingly nonchalant attitude towards their relationship. One bone of contention between them: Petra's sleepwalking habits which cause her to do a number of highly embarrassing and sometimes dangerous things such as locking herself out of buildings in the buff, urinating on the floor or heading head first onto the corner of a fireplace when she trips over furniture. She has no idea why she sleepwalks and no one, from doctors to her divorced and distant parents, can help her figure out why.

North of London on the moors of Yorkshire finds Arlo Savidge, teacher at Roseberry Hall, a school for boys. He has been hiding away behind the school's great gates and trying desperately to forget something terrible from his past. For the past five years, since he was last in a relationship with his fiance Helen and since the tragedy that he refuses to speak of occured, he has sworn off women to keep the feelings of love far away. If the feelings of love and passion are kept hidden, the grieving and guilt cannot find him. His body refuses to let him off the hook fully, however, and he finds himself an insomniac. While he makes friends with his coworkers at the school he never truly lets anyone into his heart and feels quite satisfied just being a teacher of music, his great passion.

These two people, living very different lives, are connected delicately by a shared history going back seventeen years to when they were both in school. They rarely spoke, they never dated or kissed or even held hands, but way back when Arlo sang to Petra during her lunch break. They didn't know each other and Petra was surrounded by all of her classmates, but Arlo looked directly at her and sang a love song he had written to someone he hadn't even met yet. And from that moment on they are forever connected.

When Petra catches Rob cheating on her she finally realizes that she hasn't really been in love with Rob but was in love with the idea of being in love and having someone who truly loved her back. Her parents were never very affectionate and barely seem to care what she does with her life. Feeling depressed and rejected she stays at a friend's place in Yorkshire to hopefully clear her head and get back to a happy place of creativity. On a trip to find some chocolate to make her Easter complete, Petra bumps into Arlo who has come to the same sweet shop to buy Easter chocolate for him mom who he is going to London to visit. Sparks seem to fly between Petra and Arlo and neither of them can get the other out of their head.

When they finally come together both are wondering how much fate might have played a part in bringing them together. They are elated to have found each other and seem to be falling madly in love quite quickly. But as Petra continues to sleepwalk and Arlo continues to hide his insomnia-causing past they both have to decide how much they are willing to let go of and give of themselves in order to come together and have the relationship that seemed to have started so long ago.

Having never read a book by Freya North before I was very pleasantly surprised by Pillow Talk! While some of the vernacular was foreign to me I enjoyed the banter between the characters. By far my favorite characters were Petra and one of her best friends Eric. While the story did seem to drag on at parts, looking back I don't think there is much that the author could have left out. Each part seemed needed to tell the whole backstory and story of Petra and Arlo and to fully explain how they came to be and where they were going. I am definitely excited to read more by Ms. North!

Pillow Talk is a tender romance. It tells about two adults who were in love once and who found their love again. They are not perfect and they don't consider themselves be perfect either. This novel is set in London. There is a jewelry designer called Petra Flint living. She hears a song on the radio written by Arlo Savidge. As it happens Arlo hears a song that reminds him of her. They were in love 17 years ago when they were teenagers. They meet again and there is still the spark in between them. They start seeing each others but they don't tell all of their secrets to each other because of their fear of being rejected.

The author Freya North describes admirably the contemporary London and lifestyles as well as the emotions flying between these two adults.
I would recommend this book to all romance hungry readers. The book does not have a fast pace and therefore, if you are looking for a quick action then this is not the right book for you.

I always love a good story, especially when there seems to be a little twist of fate. North spins a good story about two people destined to find each other again after many years apart. Petra has sleepwalked almost all of her life. She can't figure out why she does it. It's been detrimental to her and to her relationships. Then she runs into Arlo, her high school sweetheart. Is the timing better for them?

There were a few things that weren't necessarily bad about the book but still had me doing a bit of a double take. For instance (and I'll try not to give away too much), I was way confused about the thing that is keeping Petra sleepwalking. It seemed to come out of nowhere and was just really weird and almost out of place.

One thing that I really liked about the book was North's writing. She has a very quick wit and the ability to make me laugh (or rather chortle) out loud. The book is definitely quirky and not your run of the mill romance, which I definitely appreciated. I kind of found myself wondering what happened to Petra and Arlo once the book ended. I think that if you find yourself wondering about the characters after the book ends, it means the characters were pretty awesome.

Bottom line: Want quirky romance? Here's your book!

Pillow Talk is a story told in the present and the past of two people, Petra and Arlo who knew each other in school and come across each other again after 17 years. These two people have had heartaches of their own to deal with during those 17 years. Petra is a jewelry maker and works with three of her best friends in a studio that they share in London. Arlo is a teacher at a private school for boys in the country and is also a musician. These two people lead totally different lives but a chance meeting throws them together again and as they start to get closer, pride and secrets threaten the relationship that is growing between them. I enjoy British authors and liked this book a lot. The author writes with wit and humor that makes this a very enjoyable story.

The plot is fairly common: boy and girl meet in a school rock concert and fall in love, and somehow, don't stay in touch. Then by chance, meet again 17 years later in a remote town in Yorkshire, immediately recognize each other, find that they feel the same intensity of love as before. The book dips in and out of the school years (17 years ago) to the present. So far so good. But after this the plot thickens and becomes of a mud-like consistency... there are a series of searching for each other travelling up and down between London and Yorkshire, and an out-of-character fling the hero has with a catty co-worker, the ensuing jealousy and accusations of "you lied to me!", the heroine's sleep-walking incidents and related amateur psychology, her bad relationship with her divorced parents, and her relationship with a wise old lady who shaped her youth. Of course all ends well and the hero and heroine get together in the end as expected. Excruciatingly drawn out to 430-odd pages. Perhaps could have been written in 250 pages or so, cutting out all the irrelevant details?

This book being in the genre of "light and easy" chick lit, is trying to do too much outside of its scope. The author tries to impart tangential and inconsequential knowledge on music and appreciation of music through the hero, and of jewellery making and rare gem stones through the heroine. The history of a rare gem stone called tanzanite is repeated in multiple places in the book. The heroine is even named Petra (Greek for "stone") Flint (stone again!). The style is not the easy flowing style I have come to expect of this kind of book - the sentences and analogies too contrived for my liking.

The book has a lot of foul language, spoken out of character by practically all the characters, seemingly for effect and adds nothing to the story. The description of the customary intimate passages is also too awkward and doesn't read well.

Coming to the "mushy-ness" of the book - you would expect romance novels to be mushy, but there seems to be no boundary between the way the male character and female character express their feelings. Bottom line is bad characterization.

Recommend you pick it up from a library and read if you're curious, not worth spending money buying it or keeping in your collection!

In London, jewelry designer Petra Flint hears a song on the radio written by Arlo Savidge. At the same time Arlo the music teacher hears the song that reminds him of Petra. Both dream of what was between them when they were teens in love seventeen years ago.

When they meet, their attraction remains as strong as when they were in love. They begin seeing each other, but conceal secrets from one another. She has a poor excuse of a boyfriend and struggles with sleepwalking caused by her past that is still haunting her, and he gave up playing music and his heart when tragedy hit. Concealing their weaknesses will doom their second chance, but revealing them could prove abasing and heart-breaking if rejected.

Pillow Talk is a warm passionate contemporary romance starring two flawed people who as teens were in love and now as adults remain in love. Although the story line starts a bit slow as Freya North establishes the present lifestyles and respective emotional baggage of the lead pair, fans will enjoy reading whether the second chance at love will succeed knowing that it only can if Petra and Arlo explain to each other their flaws.

Harriet Klausner