Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

A fun read about the Spice Girls, growing up and friendship, with a giant hit of nostalgia. Touches on what it is to be an outsider and how attitudes have changed since the 90s, even if we do still have a way to go. Nice to read a book set in Yorkshire!

I LOVED THIS BOOK, it was just what I needed.

If you grew up in the 90's like me then this is the book for you. This book focuses on a group of friends who haven't spoken after a disastrous talent show when they were 15 that ruptured their friendship and left them dealing with the fall out for the next 20 years.

Carmen: the popular bitchy one who is the ringleader of the Huddies, thinking she is going to be famous decides to enter her and her mates in a talent show where they will be appearing as a Spice Girls tribute band...20 years later things haven't gone to plan and she is working in a supermarket and on the brink of loosing her home.

Ellie - once known as Ellie-phant a cruel nickname given to her by the class bully, is now working as a fitness instructor and is trying with all her might to be a mum.

Jemma - The only girl of colour in her school and from a stern religious background who is struggling with her feelings for a fellow class mate, 20 years later Jemma is working in the school as a dance teacher while trying to cope with her dead beat boyfriend and her toddler Ivy who is a mix between the Tasman Devil and a munster truck leaving a wake of destruction wherever she goes.

Laura - always know as the quiet one, Laura always dreamed of being a songwriter writing songs in her red note book to help her deal with the feelings she kept hidden, while crushing on the boy who works in the local corner shop. 20 years later after leaving her job as a lawyer to pursue a career in song writing is work for a tyrannical diva called Patience.

Benny: Unique and eccentric Benny was always the life and soul of the party. 20 years later not much has changed and Benny is exactly where he wants to be.

We follow this story from each of the girls p.o.v's through the present day and 1998 while they are trying to deal with what life throws at them in both decades.

This story was fun, relatable and full of nostalgia, I loved all the 90's refrences and it really made me yern to go back to an era where everything was so much simpler, this book had strong themes of friendship and coming of age which I loved while dealing with issues such as weight and sexuality. I dare you not to find a piece of yourself in these characters and find a piece of your teenage years echoed back to you as these girls live through their final years at school.

This book was funny, fun and fabulous and I adored it, just what I needed after some heavier reading.

If you are a fan of the Spice Girls, Smash Hits and all things 90's then I would highly recommend this book to you!

5☆ A Light Hearted Fun Chick Lit.

I was super excited when I found out about FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS, the blurb was so enticing I couldn't resist and I'm so glad I didn't.
It's a fun, drama filled story, with some laugh out loud moments about Friendship.

What really appealed to me was the era, I relished in all the flashback memories it triggered. I was a spice girl fan, loved top of the pops but who didn't.

Would you go to a school reunion??
Well I know I wouldn't.... I hated school.

So when Carmen bumps into famous footballer Darryl in her work she is horrified. He is successful and she's sitting on a checkout in Sainsbury (nothing wrong with that!) So when he mentions the school reunion it triggers her feelings she has for him. As the used to date.

So Carmen decides to track down her school buddies 'The Huddies' to persuade them to go to the reunion and enter the talent show to do things right this time round.

But all the girls have changed, as you do when you grow up.
I liked the fact that each friend had a different experience and place in the friendship circle. As with all social circles, you have popular ones, quieter ones, academic ones etc... but are they still the same?
Is their friendship still there? Or will it a be a nightmare reunion.

Each chapter is written in each different Characters perspective. I really liked it as there was a fair few characters but I was able to build up a connection with them on a personal level.

I really enjoyed the pace, it flowed along nicely. The plot was believable, fun, i was able to relate to the characters and storyline.

Friendship Never Ends is a light easy to follow chick lit.
If you enjoy drama, books about friendship, school reunion, with some great laugh out loud moments, then you will love this book!

Thank you to Trapeze books for this copy which I reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Well no pressure here, closing the tour after such a great couple of weeks! I apologise now when I get excited about a book, my reviews don’t make sense and all I can think is I frigging love this book! This is what has happened here….so sorry about that!!

When I saw got to take part in the cover reveal for this book and read the blurb, I was frigging excited! I adored the Spice Girls when they hit the scene in the 90’s, Geri lived in my hometown and was in touching distance from my house. I loved her and Posh, but I was always Sporty Spice in the group…because in my group I was the only Sporty one! So how could I not read this book that is filled with the promise of nostalgia!

What’s more, I love are stories of friendship and then school reunions! Love them! I love revisiting the past and then seeing them in the future!

You have the self-proclaimed Geri wannabe as Carmen flies solo from the girls, the “Huddies” due to things going wrong at a talent contest. Fast forward some years, and she is back in touch with the Huddies, and wants to enter the talent contest as the group again! Well, how is it all going to all play out?! It was great to read each of the girls and guy point of view in the present day and back in the day. I could gush all day about this book, it really does have the feel-good factor!

This book had so many laugh out loud moments for me, I sat there smiling, and it reminded me what me and my friends use to go back to. Days before Facebook, days where you travel to the camera shop as you have to wait for photos to be developed and hope you get some good ones! The happy and more innocent days, I LOVED IT!

It was a perfect book that I needed to read and to have it in my life.

Are you ready to be transported back to the '90's ... those heady days of high school, teenage angst, best friends, bullies, teachers (and parents) who didn't have a clue, and your whole life ahead of you. The Spice Girls had taken over the world, and Girl Power well and truly ruled!

Well, welcome to the world of Carmen, Laura, Jemma, Ellie and Benny! 5 besties who share the air of boring old Huddersfield where according to them, nothing exciting every happens (like, no shootings or hostage takeovers or anything like that!) ... until, that is, The Spice Girls launch themselves into the stratosphere, and take the music world by storm. They capture the imagination of every single impressionable music lover in the entire universe, and our 5 protagonists are swept up in the Mania that epitomised the era!

Starting off in the present day, before taking us back 22 years to the events that happened in those last few months of high school, each chapter is narrated in the alternate voices of Carmen, Laura, Jemma and Ellie. I would have loved to hear Benny's perspective too - I don't know why he wasn't included in the narrative. I adored his character!

This was a refreshing change from the abundance of dark material that I usually read, but apart from that, maybe it's comforting to read a book like this with age on my side, being able to comfortably cringe at the antics of this bunch, who are merely attempting to navigate their way through the choppy waters of teen-hood!

My only criticism is that I think Dyson has tried to cram just about every issue she could possible think of into this one book, and in so doing, doesn't really deal with most of them in any real depth. Don't get me wrong. I do realise that obviously this is a light read, and not intended to be a 'How-to' manual on dealing with deep life problems. But if you're going to cover issues like being unsure of your sexuality, uncomfortable with your religion, racial bias, financial struggles and infertility, they need to be dealt with sensitively and with a certain level of insight. I felt that in trying to include all of these here, they've all been touched on and then just glossed over.

3.5 stars for this one. As much as I enjoyed it, I felt that the author was trying to cover too much ground, and in so doing, lost some of the impact in the process. But the characterisation is awesome!! I'm positive readers won't be able to help themselves in comparing the characters to people that they know, and they'll have a good laugh in the process, enjoying the fact that so many of the situations are playing out on the page, and not happening to them in real life!

Thank you Tracy Fenton and Trapeze Books (Orion) for inviting me along for some Girl Power fun!

A light hearted and fun read that is split between two timelines: the present day and the Spice Girl era of the 90s. It tells the story of Carmen and her group of friends, who decide to enter the school talent show, a decision that they very soon live to regret.

Flash forward to 2018 and their school reunion is fast approaching. Carmen hasn’t seen her friends since the events of 20 years ago, so hatches a plan to bring the group of friends back together again. But will they be able to put the events of the past behind them? And has Carmen really changed, or is she still the same girl she was all those years ago?

Friendship Never Ends is a book about friendship and the pressures we put ourselves under. It’s a laugh out loud funny read, with some moments that will make you cringe, but that will also take you on a nostalgic trip down memory lane. For anyone who struggled to fit in during their own schooldays, it is also incredibly moving at times, and it’s these very human moments that help make this book so relatable and easy to read.

A fun story that I enjoyed immensely, this book took me back to my own schooldays and I could empathise with so much of what Carmen and her friends went through. I would recommend Friendship Never Ends to anyone who’s looking for a light, warm and easy read that will bring a smile to your face.

This is the first book I’ve read by Ella Dyson but will definitely not be my last. Friendship Never Ends is available to buy now:

Review also posted on my blog as part of the blog tour for this lovely book.

🌟🌟🌟🌟 Friendship Stars

I really enjoyed this book, it made me glad that there wasn’t something like Facebook to capture all of my stupid moments from years ago!

Facebook is really a marvellous thing if it is used for its actual purpose, it allows you to get back in touch with those people you haven’t seen for years, and also allows you to stalk old boyfriends (don’t say you haven’t all done it!)

This story jumps from NOW to THEN and back to NOW and sees 5 friends growing up together in the 90’s and getting back in touch 20 years later.

Back in the 90’s The Girls or “Huddies” were all HUGE Spice Girls fans, they knew all of the songs, knew the dance moves, and every lyric and fun fact about all of the band members.

Carmen was (or liked to think she was) the head of the gang, in all honesty she was a bit of a cow, she shot down, fat shamed, slut shamed and every other shamed, just to make herself look better than everyone else, her stories were always waaaay more important than the other girls, and woe betide any one that tried to interrupt her!

After deciding to enter into the school talent contest, “The Spice Rack” are born and practising takes place under Carmen’s watchful eye.

Fast forward to 20 years later and Carmen is living the high life, or that’s how she is perceiving her life to be on Facebook, her account is full of fabulous pictures and places she has gone to, the reality however is far from Facebook heaven.

She tracks down all of the girls from years ago, and is sad to find out that they all stayed in touch and are still friends, Carmen manages to convince the girls that they should relive the past and re-enter the Talent contest again at their high school reunion, much to everyone’s dismay.

This story  had some laugh out loud moments and also some that made me cringe, it was lovely seeing some of the things that I used to do like watch Top of the Pops, and snacks I used to eat, remember Space Raiders anyone?

Chapters are from all of the different girls perspective, so you find out all of their secrets ...and lies!

A fun filled story that will bring out the inner Girl Power in you.

The only thing negative that I can say about the book is that anyone that is not from the UK may have a hard time reading this, it does have a lot of jargon and slang words specifically used in the UK and some of our overseas friends may find this a little difficult to decipher.

I love books that spark my brain cells into action and turn back time to my school days because there is one thing for sure, that within a couple of chapters I had put faces to all of these characters. Ok their names were different to the friends I had but each one was clearly there. The one that thought she was always the best at everything, the clever one, the shy one and the one we all Wannabe. We all went to school with them right? In my day the pop stars were untouchable icons but by the late 1990’s boy and girl bands were being put together off the street, they were literally like the girl next door. The Spice Girls hit the pop scene and all the young girls went Spice Girl crazy.
Carman was the girl who had everything going for her. She lived in the better part of Huddersfield in a pretty pink house and now 20 years down the line she still lived in the pretty pink house and had swapped school for working on the tills at Sainsbury’s. A chance meeting with an old flame, now a famous footballer, soon cheered her up. He had come back to his home town for the school reunion, he said to her, Say You’ll be There, so nothing was going to Stop her. She would again Let Love Lead the Way. With the 20 year reunion for her former school coming round she was itching to know what had become of the group of friends she had belonged to. She had to get the group back together. The last time was at the school talent night, it had been a very memorable occasion for all the wrong reasons. They certainly hit the Headlines! Could Carman bring the old friends together to put on a redeeming performance of the Spice Girls, or as they were called The Spice Rack?
The story is told both in present day and way back in school by Ellie, Jemma, Laura, Carmen and Benny each of them facing the challenges of adult life in their own way but it isn’t long before Carmen is trying to head the group again. The group really need the success in present day to finally have closure on the past and move on. They have to face the question Who do you think you are? before they can be themselves. I really wanted the group to not only come together for one night but Never Give up on the Good Times, that they once had. There are some hilarious scenes in this story and some pretty sad ones too. It is about learning to be yourself and being liked for you not someone you pretend to be but it doesn’t hurt to Spice up Your Life, now and again!
A super curl up with story that made me very nostalgic about my own past. I wish to thank the publisher and NetGalley for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly

Friendship Never Ends centres on a group of school friends who had drifted apart after a disastrous incident at a talent show at school when they were teenagers. With a school reunion just around the corner can they forgive the past and become the friends they once were?
The book starts in 2018 with Carmen, Jemma, Ellie, Laura and Benny all at different junctures in their life. With the exception of Carmen all the others in the group had remained in touch and managed to maintain some elements of their childhood friendships. When Carmen finds out that there is going to be a school reunion and that there is going to be a talent contest she sees it as a means to get the whole gang back together and once again enter the contest. Her life didn’t quite work out how she expected and she is now working in a supermarket with debts mounting up and she realises that she has no real friends that she can count on. What she didn’t expect was the resistance she encountered, had she really been that bad at school.
You are then transported back to 1998 at a time as the title may suggest when the Spice Girls exploded into the lives of many young girls and you learn about the dynamic of the group and the incident that lead to the breakup of the gang. I loved this part of the book as even though by this time I was 28 and had just had my son everything just dragged me back to that period and the highs and lows of school life.
I couldn’t help but find myself chuckling at some of the things that happened and the attitudes of the group towards their beliefs and attitudes towards their parents, school and life in general as it showed that no matter what the year is essentially some things never change right down to the crushes on pop stars and the plans we all make for the future. Carmen was a hard character to like in some respect as she was quite selfish in her attitudes to the others. As the leader of the group she called “The Huddies”, she always made sure it was her way or no way especially when it came to the talent show. She was the one who decided who was going to be which member of the Spice Girls tribute act “The Spice Rack” – and I am sad to say that name just made me smile every time I read it. You couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for Ellie as she struggled with her weight and the fact that her nick name was Ellie-phant, but she loved being part of the gang as she did feel a little protected from it all.
With the story being told from the perspective of all the girls in the gang you really got a better sense of the group dynamic and saw the events that unfolded from every angle and how they affected each person. I think the only thing for me was that although Benny was part of the gang and did feature quite a lot during the school years I wish there had been an element of the story from his point of view as he was quite a colourful character.
From the way teenagers talk to the trends of the time Ella Dyson has certainly managed to capture the feel of the 90’s. For anyone who at school at that time this book will certainly make them feel like they were back in time. A great read that shows that sometimes friendships really can stand the test of time and childhood mistakes.

A Fun, Fabulous and Nostalgic Read
This light-hearted read will transport you back to your childhood… well – if you were still relatively young in the 90’s that is.

Friendship Never Ends is a nostalgic read that takes you back to the time of the Spice Girls, Tamagotchi’s and bitchy school catfights. If you are looking for a nice relaxed and easy read to take your mind off the here and now, this might very well be for you.

About the Book
1996. The year the Tamagotchi was born, Charles and Diana divorced, England reached the semi-finals of the World Cup and five British women told the world what they really, really wanted.

Sarah, Laura, Gemma, Benny and Carmen have been best friends all their lives. They have survived high school, finding salvation in their friendship and through the guidance of their ringleader Carmen. However, the year they turn 13 is the year everything changes. In order to find love, Carmen enters the group into the school talent show, thrusting her reluctant friends into the limelight. Forming a Spice Girls tribute act called The Spice Rack, Carmen assigns each of her friends a role in the band. The gig is a disaster, and the group never speak again.

2018. The year the Tamigotchi is reborn on iOS, Harry and Meghan get married, England crash out of the World Cup and five women put aside their differences and reunited for a Goodbye tour.

Sometimes it is easy to look back on our school days and see it through rose tinted glasses. We either focus on the amazing friendships we had or the terrible bullying we encountered, but reading this book it’s easy to relate to the teenage angst, anger, frustration and romantic complications.

The characters may rub you up the wrong way a little at times (Carmen in particular) but the very fact that her immaturity and self-centred nature only serves to remind us that we all that that ‘one person’ in our lives.

Throughout the book, Carmen tracks down her old school friends Sarah, Laura, Gemma and Benny on Facebook and after hearing that Darryl Kenny will be at the reunion, Carmen is keen to impress him – reviving The Spice Rack seems like the perfect way to grab his attention.

The morning of the reunion brings disaster strikes and the girls have to work through some nasty revelations and learn to put aside their differences, but can things ever be the same again?

Friendship Never Ends is a truly romantic comedy that will take you on a nostalgic trip back to the 90’s while navigating the reader through a massive range of emotions. Funny, emotional and at times toe-curling cringeworthy moments knit together to create a truly lovely read – that is as long as you can put aside your adult side and embrace the memories.

Friendship Never Ends is published by: Orion Publishing
ISBN: 978-140918-362-4

Friendship never ends
tells the story of a group of friends from Huddersfield who, at the dawning of Girl Power in the nineties, fall in love with the Spice Girls and decide to form a tribute act at their high school talent competition - and of how it all goes horribly wrong.

Told in first person, the story begins with the self centred ‘Huddies’ ringleader Carmen, who decides to take part in the competition as she expects it to lead to fame and fortune.
She also hoped to bag herself the school football team heartthrob - but twenty years on is still single and a supermarket checkout girl who hasn’t seen her ‘besties’ since high school.
An accidental meeting at work with the now famous footballer leads her to try to get the band back together for a forthcoming school reunion as a way of putting the past to bed, and again securing the man.
Schoolteacher Jemma has a child with her partner but has always felt something was missing from her life.
PA to a delusional celebrity singer, Laura has always wanted to write songs and gave up her job as a solicitor to ‘start at the bottom in the music business’ but hates her job.
Ellie, once the chubby friend, is a personal trainer who has been avoiding her friends for her own personal reasons.
Along with their drama loving friend Benny, they reluctantly come together to try to redeem themselves at the school reunion and find their lives changing along the way.

Spice Girls fans will recognise the songs that form the backdrop to the wannabe’s story as they never lose their love for the band over the twenty years from high school to present day.

Lighthearted, sometimes funny, easy to read in one sitting, ideal holiday reading.

As a 90's girl I really wanted to read this book. It was very easy to read and didn't require too much concentration - I think this would be a good sun lounger read.

Four girls and two boys at school are best friends and call themselves “The Huddies” as they live in Huddersfield, where apparently “nothing exciting ever happens”. They see the Spice girls launch themselves into the music world and want to follow suit- as “The Spice Rack”. Fast forward 22 years and there is a school reunion. Carmen finds one of the old gang on social media and tracks her down to meet her, only to discover that the rest of the gang have been friends ever since they left school. They think that Carmen has the glamorous life- from her social media pictures, when in reality she is working in a supermarket and bored out of her brain. There is also another talent show and Carmen really really wants to do it all again. I really enjoyed this. It took me back to a time of different sorts of friendships- those we had at school and didn’t really think about our futures or who we would become. The mistakes we made and how through adult eyes we now see them in a different light. The chapters alternate between different characters and are written in the first person who to me gave it more of a personal feel. A book to enjoy and one to make you smile which is what you want, what you really, really want!
For more reviews please see my blog http://nickibookblog.blogspot.co.uk/
or follow me on Twitter @nickijmurphy1
(rest of links as part of blog tour)

What a disappointing read for me - I’m a 90s girl, I remember the Spice Girls and living in trackies and kappa and everything that comes with growing up in the late 90s/early 00s and I was so excited for Friendship Never Ends. But in the end I couldn’t finish this book which is such a disappointment.

This book genuinely sounded like it could have been one of my favourite reads of 2018 and it just fell so flat and it just tried too damn hard. The references in the now and the 90s were shoe-horned in like you wouldn’t believe, including a very off-putting mention of someone dressing as Caitlyn Jenner for Halloween. Like, are you joking?! If it isn’t transphobic, then it is in incredibly bad taste. It genuinely put a sour taste in my mouth, because there is so many other celebs you could have referenced in that moment and you choose someone transgender as someone to dress up for for Halloween?!

Then there was Carmen. How someone can be so conceited is beyond me. I have never met a character who needed a reality check more. When the book opened with her sat at a checkout I thought, “Finally, a book about me - a character with a real job,” but she’s so disdainful and dismissive as if working in a supermarket is beyond her and it just got worse from there - flirting with a famous footballer, being incredibly narcissistic, and then deciding to get her old group of friends back together for their twenty year reunion when she was just plain awful to them all. Someone who goes on a date with a bloke, doesn’t bother to remember his name and just seems to want something to brag on Facebook about. She was a caricature. I don’t even know if it was meant to be like that or if Ella Dyson just can’t grasp that characters need you to feel empathy towards them, not pure hatred.

My final irritation is the incredibly awkward use of fictional famous celebs when this novel revolves around the Spice Girls? If you’re referencing the Spice Girls why not use an actual singer and footballer instead of Darryl what’s it and Dee Dee bla bla? It’s so jarring.

Long story short, this wasn’t the book I expected, it was trying way too hard to be 90s and the references in particular will date this book so badly, so quickly. And the throwaway use of Caitlyn Jenner as a Halloween dress up idea is something I sincerely hope has been edited out of the final book.