So many times a song reminds you of a person and the words perfectly sum up how you feel. First love combined with heartache and shame leads Ben and Ali to separate lives in different parts of the world.
A chance book purchase changes their paths and the power of first love takes over.
Heartwarming and engaging the book is thoroughly enjoyable!

I read this book months ago and I swear, I'm still suffering from my book hangover! This is an evocative, poignant story of first love that made me laugh and cry. It also introduced me to some damn good music!

Mix Tape is the story of two Sheffield teenagers that fall in love in the late 1970s. Sharing a passion for music, Daniel is the first boy to make Alison a mix tape. But then Alison abruptly disappears from Daniel's life leaving him heartbroken.

Over 30 years later Dan is now living in Edinburgh with his partner and son. Out of the blue Dan is reminded of Alison and finds her on Twitter. He tweets her with a link to a song from their first ever date in 1978.

Forgetting her role as a wife and a mother for a few minutes, Ali is consumed by the powerful memories that Dan's tweet hes evoked. She can't resist the urge to reply. And so as Dan and Ali share their memories and feelings for each other through the power of songs - some old, some new - a new mix tape is created.

But is this enough? Or will one of them do something that will change everything?

I adored this book; it is so evocative with a moving story that hooked me from beginning to end. I actually created Dan and Ali's mix tape as a Spotify playlist as I read along. Each song, including music from Blondie, John Martyn and the Arctic Monkeys is so telling and loaded with meaning. It's a beautiful mix tape and one of my favourite playlists.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this book.
After finishing this book, I'm left with so many conflicted feelings I doubt this review will do it justice.
First of all, it is really well written and probably for mature audiences, due to some disturbing issues and scenes. I really felt for the main characters Dan and Allison and for what they lost in the past.
How the author handled their reunion was always going to be tricky and for the most part it was somewhat realistic (I think?) yet I really felt for the families of those affected. That they didn't feel more anguish was pretty selfish. But then again, in real life, some people are.
The music definitely added to the storytelling, and you could really feel the difference in locations as it progressed.
3.5 stars

Ahh I loved this book. We meet Alison & Daniel - a pair of teenagers who fell in love in 1970s Sheffield. We flick back and forth between their life then and their lives now - the choices they made along the way & why. A story of first love & second chances but with a bit of substance & grit. This is the first of the author’s books I have read and I can’t wait to read more.

Back in 1978 Daniel Lawrence and Alison Connor go on their first date, to Kev Carter's Christmas party. It's first love in Sheffield to the accompaniment of a fantastic soundtrack of music (Elvis Costello, Blondie, JIlted John).

Switch to present day 2012, Daniel is now Dan, living in Edinburgh with his partner Katelin, son Alex and dog, a music writer. Alison is now Ali, a writer, married with two daughters and living in Adelaide, Australia. Then Kev Carter sends Dan a tweet about Ali and all the memories come flooding back. But how do you reach out to your first true love after over 30 years? When words seem too trite why not send a link to a musical memory from your shared past, in this case Elvis Costello and The Attractions' 'Pump It Up'. Dan and Ali continue to send each other links to music that resonates with them, music from their shared past and music from a time when they were no longer together.

Told in two alternating timelines we see Daniel and Alison fall in love despite their differences in class: Alison and her older brother struggling to cope with an alcoholic mother while Daniel leads a charmed life with a cosy loving middle-class family. In the present day Dan deals with his partner's contempt for his profession and his best friend's infidelity, Ali deals with her youngest daughter's surprise pregnancy and her husband's arrogant belief that the family will do whatever he decrees.

What happens when Twitter gives two people a chance to reconnect, to look back at their past and to think about what might have been? Is the grass alway greener on the other side? What caused them to separate so utterly 30 years ago?

After reading this book all I really wanted was to download this playlist and play it over and over again, that's how invested I got into the characters and their musical love letters to each other across the world. I just loved taking this journey with Daniel/Dan and Alison/Ali, reliving the agony and ecstasy of first love and seeing the adults they became.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Set in both the '70s and present-day, Mix Tape tells the story of Alison and Dan and their relationship. s
As teenagers in Sheffield, both bond over their mutal love of music. When Alison lives through a traumatic experience she up and leaves to Australia, crushing Daniel. 30 years later, now living different lives with different people, they find each other again via Twitter and begin to reconnect through the form of music.

This book should have been right up my street but unfortunately, I struggled to get into this. I just couldn't engage with either Alison or Dan. Maybe the concept was too nuanced for me that it went over my head but I couldn't wrap my head around the thought of upsetting your established life and relationships over a relationship that took place 30 years ago.

I can't fault the book itself, it's well written with fully fleshed characters. It also doesn't shy away for difficult themes and handles them sensitively and with grace.

I wish that I could say I enjoyed this book but I did keep looking at how much I had left to read which isn't particularly a great sign.

I would give 3/5 stars since I thought it was very well written but I just couldn't engage with the plot.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 21%.
I thought this was going to be one of my favourites of the year and took my time in feeling my mood was right to start. When I was reading the first Dan sections with all the descriptions of Edinburgh I was besotted as I love a good book set where I know. Then nothing really happens and the characters just begin to get less likable. On the other side we have Alison is Australia who I never warmed to. They find each other online after decades, and then start creating this mix tape/playlist via DMs on twitter for a reason I'm still not sure of.
The flashbacks to their younger selves was the better parts of what I did read as we see their relationship deepen and their background home lives.
As the links continue to be built it was the level of discomfort I felt that made me stop, particularly on his passages. He was hiding it from the people around him and it was the most blatant emotional affair I've experienced in a while. He didn't have a problem with his current life to cause him to start developing their relationship again, he has a wife and a child and is not unhappy. I just didn't understand the motives of how quickly they fell back into it, and I could see where it was going to lead and had to get out before I hated the main pair any more than I already did.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Okay, so I am conflicted by Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson. Firstly, I do love a good love story especially when the story involves first love that has broken down for whatever reason and then rekindled as adults. I love that those people who once knew one another then have to rediscover each other as adults. I love that.

However, when that comes at the cost of other established relationships I find it hard to feel empathy with the characters. Yes, people are flawed and yes this can happen in real life. I think for me, probably because where I am in my life I know I would feel devastated if my partner rekindled a romance with his first love.

It is a well written book and Jane Sanderson should be proud of what she has produced. Personally, I think I need to know what happened with tertiary characters to be able to fully commit to the romance of Dan and Ali.

Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson is available now.

For more information regarding Jane Sanderson (@SandersonJane) please visit www.jane-sanderson.com.

For more information regarding Random House (@randomhouse) please visit www.randomhousebooks.com.

I really enjoyed this, it had a depth and intensity that kept me captivated.
Alison and Daniel are just meant to be, but it's been 30 years since they were last together and so much has happened. I love the way that the sadness and destruction is shown, it makes the whole thing more visceral and believable.
Would be amazing if there was a playable version of the mixtape available on YouTube. Fingers crossed.

First love, lost love, played to the background of a fantastic music list- there is nothing to dislike!
What happens when first love is re- ignited? Can you leave your family and take a second chance more than 30 years later?
I loved this book, I loved the journey the characters took and I loved the background music list.
The emotions Daniel and Alison had to endure were perfectly portrayed, who can forget the anguish of first love?
Highly Recommended.

Mix Tape is a novel about first love, lost love and second chances. Strong and well.written characters set to a soundtrack I wanted to play in the background.

Alison and Dan's teenage love story begins in Sheffield late in 1978. The story travels back and forth through the years, and the continents, giving us an insight into their lives. Always running through the book there is the music, the music of the eras, the music they've shared, the music that binds them. I loved the music. I actually found and played the tracks as I was reading.
I enjoyed the book, it was well written and the characters were well rounded and interesting. I don't want to add any spoilers but if you like a good modern romantic story then I wholeheartedly recommend this one.
Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for an arc of this book.

Wonderful story of true love amongst tragedy and misunderstandings, where songs cut true to the core to tell what was really going on. Loved it

Alison was Daniel's first love. They get back into contact through their mutual love of music years later,when both are settled with families. Will their love rekindle when they meet again? Is first love strong enough to make them give up everything? Well written and enthralling. The reader is kept guessing until almost the end.

A great book for any music lover. Music can & does attach itself to life events. When you here a certain song it takes you back to that time in your life be it good or bad.
This book is no different. Excellent read. Emotional yet funny.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Transworld Publishers for gifting me this book in exchange for my honest review

I'm a sucker for a book with a playlist and I was hooked on this from the opening chapter. It reminded me a little of Nick Hornby in that the writing was smart but accessible and the characters flawed but very likeable. I think it will be a huge word-of-mouth hit and I, for one, will be recommending it widely.

This is a book that is still in my mind days after finishing it. I’m sure it will be picked up by someone as a film. Not a straightforward love story, much more interesting. I also had to play all the music tracks mentioned. Fabulous

I really wanted to like this book especially based on the blurb. Unfortunately I never really felt a great deal of empathy for the lead characters who were a little too self-absorbed for my liking. I enjoyed a lot of the description but the four way time/location split got a bit confusing and disjointed - just as I got interested and absorbed in one story the focus shifted. The music references were great and I enjoyed the location descriptions particularly those of the narrowboat and Australia.

I had really wanted to like this one, as I had seen lots of love for it on social media. Maybe I’m a cynic, but I wasn’t a fan of the direction Mix Tape took. I don’t know, it was like watching something that you know there will be devastation, but you can’t look away and what’s left in its wake makes you uncomfortable . The nostalgia was good, the writing good, but I just couldn’t get on board with it as a whole. Rounded up to 3 stars because there are definite positives.

I wanted to love this. And for a while I was mostly enjoying it. I found it quite a slooooooow slow burn, which meant this took me several days to get through whereas a book this size that properly grips me should be finished in 2 nights.

I found Dan and Ali's story to be really intense and that's not a bad thing. I believed in their love for each other and the emotions felt really human and raw and realistic. Sometimes the perfect relationship passes you by and that is just life and it's so wonderful when there's a chance you can get it back. They each made decisions to get over the past that were sensible. I'm vehemently against how they decided to reconnect and it was a deal breaker for me. I couldn't love the book after these 2 adults behaved like adolescents.

So whilst I loved the mix tape concept and sending each other songs that just hit the right spot every time and could see how absolutely perfect for each other they were, I wouldn't pick this up again.