This book is a gorgeous rom com that had me hooked right from the beginning. It was a great storyline with an amazing cast of characters, all of which I loved - especially Jed, I found myself falling in love with him.....
I also loved the twist right at the beginning when the main character, Milly, is involved in an accident, instead of building it up until the end of the book. After her accident Milly’s story slowly unfolds as she tries to sort out her confused life.
I really enjoyed this book and hope that this isn’t the last that we will hear from Milly!!

I completely loved this story. Although when you read in the first chapter the main character gets hit by a bus, you may wonder how the book can be a romance story, but I can assure you, it really is a beautiful romance story and that the main character, Milly is ok after her bump with a moving bus! You might wonder how Milly ended up being hit by a bus? Being so engrossed by her phone and running late for a dream interview with Vogue magazine, Milly literally doesn’t see the bus coming towards her.

Waking up in hospital after being in a coma for a week, Milly feels like her world has come crashing down around her. She is evicted from the flat she shares with her ‘odd’ flatmate, she loses her work contacts she used to be able to rely on, so the last thing she is expecting or prepared for, is her ex Jed to come and visit her in hospital. Jed has been just as worried as everyone else about Milly after her accident.

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP . . .
Jed offers to help Milly out and let her stay with him whilst she is getting herself back on her feet again. What I really loved through this story is watching the journey that Milly takes. She becomes more interested in things around her and less focused on work. Spending time with the people that matter in her life, Milly starts to re-evaluate what really matters to her, and without giving anything away the incredible Jed plays a large part in this journey of Milly’s!

Things Are Looking Up is a beautifully written story about love, life, family and most importantly remembering what truly is important in life is the people we love and care about. I can totally recommend this book to anyone to read.

Things are Looking Up is exactly what it promises to be in the blurb - it is an uplifting story of a workaholic girl hit by a bus while on her way to a breakthrough job interview. Milly wakes up in a hospital. She's just spent a week in coma just because she couldn't take her eyes off her phone, reading work-related messages. Her family tell her she needs to slow down and reassess her priorities in life and for once, flatless, jobless, and without any prospects to ever make it again in the demanding fashion journalism world, Milly is ready to do just that - look up from her phone and take stock of her life. Enter Jed, a perfect ex-boyfriend (almost an ex-fiance), still hot and handsome, even richer and more successful than he used to be, and to top it all sweet, kind, and understanding.

If you love a good second-chances story, you are going to be delighted with this one. Second chances in life, but also family, friends, and romantic relationships. As Maxine Morrey aptly put it, sometimes you are just not ready for the first chance. I found Milly's life before the bus accident very relatable. Life of a freelancer is hard, hectic, and full of constant pressure. Milly's family are worried she is giving all of herself, working for people who take her effort and her sacrifices for granted, while Milly is oblivious to how replaceable she is to them. Until that special moment of realization that put things into perspective. This isn't an anti-career book - after all, Milly rebuilds her life, she just does it in a way that makes it more balanced and gives her more happiness and personal fulfilment.

Jed did seem a bit too perfect to be true, but, well...a girl can dream. There is also a lot of drama with the new woman in Jed's life - you didn't think he would still be completely free and unattached four years after he and Milly broke up? The book is mostly about Milly's personal growth and life changes, but there is also plenty of intense romantic feelings, misunderstandings that could have been cleared much sooner had the characters talked (and listened!) to each other.

My only niggle is that sometimes things were a bit too spelled-out, but it was still an enjoyable read and I would definitely like to read another book from Maxine Morrey. Hope it comes out soon!

Thank you to Rachel from Rachel's Random resources, NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the review copy provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

Things Are Looking Up, is a heart-warming read. It will not fail to make you smile and feel uplifted and positive after reading it.

With characters you easily connect with and a lovely plot that leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy inside. It’s the perfect summer read. A will they/won’t they rom-com that makes you fall in love with the characters, and keep turning the pages to see how their story ends.

I really enjoyed this rom com. Milly has the career she loves, in fact she lives for it and has given up her love life and even family time to achieve her career of dreams! When she gets hit by a bus, on the way to an interview to further her career goals, she finds herself waking from a coma surrounded by her family and her ex boyfriend Jed. She has soon been forgotten about in her working life, her flatmate kicks her out . She has no job and no money and feels very vulnerable. While Milly recovers she begins to take a fresh look at the choices she has made , discovering what and who are really important. A book about second chances , starting over and what's really important in life.
Overall an uplifting story, somewhat predictable but a light hearted read that I enjoyed.

I'm feeling confident that the blurb has drawn you in...in a world where we all spend far too much staring down at our phones, we meet Milly, a woman who can't tear her eyes away from hers. Her job is her everything, to the detriment of her relationships with both partners and her family. She's never really truly present in her own life, and is not really able to give 100% to anything outside of her job.

Milly is a fashion journalist, and the chance of a lifetime is within her reach; a job at Vogue, the ultimate fashion magazine. The years of hard work and loneliness were finally going to pay off until the one important moment she spent her staring at her phone. Waking up in a hospital bed after her very close encounter with a bus, Milly is forced into a new life - one with significantly less money, less work but more time. Time to spend with loved ones and time to re-evaluate what was really important. I'm pleased to confirm that we have also a delightful romance with an incredibly handsome man thrown in for good measure!

Maxine Morrey has yet again provided us with an excellent novel - I'm not sure she can write a bad one! Our phones are such an integral part of all of ours lives that I think we sometimes forget to look up, just like Milly. Enjoying your job is for many people a rare thing, but we have to remember how important relationships are to us all - the people in front of us are, social media and our phones do not always depict real life. Maxine captures this perfectly, and highlights the fact that we should all be focusing on our real relationships.

I am more than happy to recommend this novel. If this is your first Maxine Morrey novel, you will read this and be left wanting to read more! So please do! Grab yourself a glass of wine, a blanket (yes I know its May, but the sunshine still hasn't made an appearance!!) and settle in for an evening with Milly and the delicious Jed!

Milly has been pushing and pushing to become known in the world of fashion journalism. She has given up pretty much everything in her life to reach for her dream. She spends all of her time working and following everything and everyone on social media so she can be on top of what is happening. She is on her way to a very important interview when she crosses a street while looking at her phone and is literally hit by a bus. This turns out to be a life changing event - Milly, with the help of her brother, sister-in-law, and ex-boyfriend Jed starts to look at her life with a whole new perspective. Will she continue to reach for the same dream or will she find a new one?

This book drove home the importance of taking time for the little things in life and remembering that our relationships with the people around us are important and should be cherished. Milly's near death experience really makes her look at her life and re-evaluate what is most important. I also have to say that we all need a Jed in our life. He was sweet, encouraging, and an all around good guy. A perfect book boyfriend. I really enjoyed the story and will have no problem recommending it to others.

My sincere thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book and give my unbiased opinion of it.

“Read yourself happy” is definitely a good way to describe how I felt about this book. I was hooked from the very beginning, as there’s not many more exciting ways to start your novel than to literally throw your main character under a bus!

I definitely identified with Milly’s character and the digital obsession is something I battle with on a daily basis, both in my personal and professional life. I do feel like any life-changing situation makes you take stock and take a good, long look at yourself and where you could possibly have your priorities wrong and this is something I have done.

There are parts of the story which are inevitable, predictable and you could possibly even say overly exaggerated but this is the writer’s perogative and I don’t think it hampered my enjoyment of the story at all. Instead, it took me on a wonderful and life-affirming journey which reminded me of what’s important and how we work to live, not live to work, as in a corporate setting no-one is irreplaceable.

This has been an uplifting, entertaining read which I found myself getting lost in and I found difficult to put down. I can’t wait to read more by this author!

Milly has worked hard to achieve her career dreams, and it certainly hasn’t come without sacrifices. She has given up spending time with her family, and even ended up losing the love of a man who was perfect for her. When Milly is on the way to an interview to finally attain the job she has been longing for, she is more than confused when she wakes up one week later in a hospital bed.

It turns out that Milly was hit by a bus on her way to the interview, something she has very little knowledge or memory of. Whilst laying in the hospital bed, Milly begins to revaluate her life, and the lack of things she has to show for the endless sacrifices she made in order to achieve what she believed to be her dream.

When she is finally discharged, Milly makes the decision to take a good look around her, and promises herself that she will not miss out on any more happiness chasing a career. Now is her time to truly find herself, and discover what it is she really wants from life.

I have been quite a fan of Maxine Morrey’s for some time, and I always know that when I pick up one of her books I am in for a treat. Things are looking up is a story that really takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, and you find yourself taking a long look at what is important in life alongside Milly. I thought the storyline itself was so wonderfully written, I found myself lost in Milly’s life and totally swept up in her search for happiness.

With a cast of delightful characters and a storyline that has you immersed to the very end, this is an absolute page turner of a book.

Milly gets thrown under the bus both physically and metaphorically, when she gets run over by an actual bus and comes out of a coma to discover her ex has arrived to visit her; the ex that she discovers has been keeping in contact with all her family, since he became her ex!

The author creates quite a shocking, but I fear realistic scenario as Milly tries to get back into work, when it appears that having been in a coma is not a sufficient excuse for not delivering on the work front. To add to Milly’s misfortune, her flat mate visits her in hospital, just to evict her! As things are portrayed, they certainly need to start looking up for Milly.

The only things that seem to be going well for Milly in this book are her Family and Friends. Jed in particular, her ex, is incredibly supportive; the sort of friend everyone would like to have in their lives, and he made me feel happy, let alone Milly!

In Jed, the author has created such a likeable character; a good looking, wealthy man, oozing with kindness. I felt desperate for Milly to let him back into her life, but she seemed to want to push him away, almost as though she’d didn’t feel worthy of his love.

I perhaps read more into the prose than intended, but when Milly had the cast removed from her broken arm, it was as though she changed, as if the removal of the cast was a kind of metaphor for her removing her old self – she certainly seemed to change, and most definitely for the better!

Milly joked about having to be hit by a bus to see where her life was going wrong; I loved the way the author was empowering Milly in this way, to change her life for the better. Of course no one wants to be hit by a bus, but as a reader I felt as though I was given food for thought about my own life choices, and that the text was far deeper than one might originally have thought. It was as though Milly’s life was thrown into disarray by the accident, as a sign that she deserved a better life than the one she was living.

I found myself becoming entirely invested in Milly’s future and her desire to be a better person. I loved her relationship with Hector the dog but loved the way the author wrote about her friendship with Jed even more. I felt that the author handled the relationship very sensitively, whilst leaving the reader on tenterhooks for the optimum outcome.

Please read this book for yourself, so you can see how Milly became a better person, less reliant on mobile devices, but as to any hints of romance – I’m not going to spoil things for you, apart from to confirm that Milly loved Hector very much.

This author did something fairly incredible, in creating such a likeable, endearing story, from such a potentially tragic beginning, with the accident. As much as I enjoyed this novel, I felt that there was still more story to tell, beyond the surprise epilogue, and it would be very good news indeed if this book turned out the be the first in a series about Milly and her Friends and Family.

This book was SO FUN! Sometimes it takes getting hit by a bus to make you take a minute to look up and appreciate things around you. In the case of this book it was a literal bus that Milly got hit by that landed her in the hospital in a coma with multiple injuries. Lucky for Milly and us she made a full recovery. She also came to realize that she had been so consumed with her career that she had pushed everything else out of her life. Her family, her friends, the love of her life. Fortunately Millies unfortunate encounter with a bus let her to start looking up from her phone and making some real connections. Milly was a great likable character who just seem to have been caught up in the rat race of a competitive fashion business. Her brother Harry and sister-in-law Ava were a great support system and I loved how there for Milly they were. And then there’s Jed, Milly‘s ex who had been the first to be called about the accident because his name was still on her emergency contact card. Jed was perhaps a little good to be true, kind, caring, smart, handsome, wealthy, and extremely supportive. I was like OK Milly if you won’t have him I will! 🙋🏻‍♀️ There was some definite Romance peppered into the story but I’d say it was more of the story of Milly rediscovering and reinventing herself.

This book and emojis 🚍 📱 🏥 🪳 💞

*** Big thank you to Boldwood Books for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

I really enjoyed this book and it contained a good reminder to focus on what really matters. I also liked that each of the chapters picked up the conversation or the story where it left off on the last page of the previous chapter, rather than changing the scene and subject completely. It created a nice flow within the story. Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

A fabulous up-to-date novel about life, love and mistakes made along the way.

Milly has worked long and hard for her dream job, committing herself 24/7 to her career and, finally, she is on the verge of achieving success – a position at Vogue magazine. Then they change the time of her interview and she has her head down, focusing on her mobile phone and misses the bus bearing down on her. When she next opens her eyes, the reality of her situation comes crashing down; she has lost everything she’s worked for and her life has imploded. Then her ex, Jed, re-enters her life and as she convalesces, Milly wonders if she can work her way back to where she was or, then again, if life has more to offer?

This is a touching read from an author with a good insight into the life of a modern woman. Milly is easy to identify with; we’ve all known someone who commits everything to their career to the detriment of everything else in life. I admired Milly – she’s a very loveable character but not without her flaws – well, let’s face it, few of us are! This is a lovely story, beautifully told but there were a couple of inconsistencies which niggled at me. However, it was still a delightful, entertaining read and one I’m happy to give four stars.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy and to Rachel Gilbey for my spot on this tour; this is – as always – my honest, original and unbiased review.

Thanks to NetGalley for my gifted copy of this book.
Things Are Looking Up is the story of Millie, a women trying to climb the ladder of success in the fashion world. She is a workaholic who is constantly glued to her phone. After she gets hit by the bus (while too busy to look up from said phone) she ends up in the hospital with major injuries and major regrets. Her old boyfriend and love of her life, Jed, is still listed as an emergency contact so when she wakes from her coma she finds him there waiting for her. While she’s stuck recuperating in the hospital she ends up losing her job, getting kicked out of her rented room by her roommate, and then realizes she has been so busy working that she doesn’t even have real friends.
This is an adorable rom-com that has a notable new book boyfriend found in Jed. I loved his character but I also loved seeing growth in Millie as she rediscovers the simple pleasures in life, learns to live in the moment, and sees and enjoys the world around her.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a light, fun read that made me think about how dependent we all are on our phones. Since reading it, I've been a lot more aware of how often I'm using my phone! I'm not sure if it was reiterated too much across the course of the book but it definitely affected me. The characters were all well rounded and (generally) likeable.

I had a couple of gripes about it. Firstly, I don't feel the side characters were used as well as they could be. There seemed to be a lot of them but were just casually dropped in there without any real development. Secondly, there were some bits that just seemed unnecessary to me (the swimming pool?) but I may have missed something!

Overall though it was a nice, fun read.

Thank you NetGalley, author Maxine Morrey, and Boldwood Books publishing for giving me a free arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
5 stars
This book had me at page one and did not let go until the very end.
Milly has always worked hard to achieve her career dreams. She has given up on spending time with her family and even the love of a good man. So when she is on her way to an interview for her dream job, she finds herself waking up in the hospital a week later due to the fact she has been hit by a bus. While recovering in the hospital, Milly starts to reevaluate her life and all the paths that have left her with little to nothing to show for all the sacrifices she has made throughout her life. After leaving the hospital, Milly starts to really look around and see what all she has missed and given up and decides find herself and what she truly wants out of her life.
I was so on board for this book. Milly was a very relatable character, especially in this day and age, where women have to do all they can to compete in order to make it in their chosen careers, but those especially in the fashion industry. There were so many laugh out loud moments, but some of my favorite were her newly rented apartment and her trying to convince herself the bullet holes and the noisy neighbors would be a great place to live.
I appreciated how much she did not want to depend on anyone, but came to the realization that asking and allowing others to help does not make you less independent, but willing to accept all of us need help from time to time and it does not make us less successful.
Jed was such a sweetheart and only wanted the best for Milly, which meant giving her advice she did not always want to hear. I can't get over what a down-to-earth guy he was even being as wealthy as he was. I liked how he would go out of his way to make sure those around him were taken care of even an old man's dog! There were little hints of romance sprinkled throughout this story, but it was more of a self-discovery journey. The pacing was a little odd at times due to the time jumps, sometimes of weeks and months later, but they kept the story moving and held my interest.
Overall, I liked how well the ending wrapped everything up nicely. I would recommend this book to those who are looking for a feel good read with enjoyable characters! I am looking forward to author Maxine Morrey's next book!

I really loved this book!
Milly gets hit by a bus while she's on her way to the most important job interview of her life and with her eys stuck to her phone. The following week's she goes through coma, recovery and reavaluating her life.
I loved Milly's journey, discovering the importance of little and valuable things in life (like a cuddle with a puppy) and distancing herself from social media and a kind of superficial approach to existence.
At the beginning she is stuck in a sort of self-deprecating attitude that doesn't allow her to grow, but with time she gets out of it and discovers her true self.
Definetly a well written, heart warming journey!

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

#thingsarelookingup #NetGalley

absolutely loved this book.

I think after everything this last year has thrown at everyone, it has forced everyone to take a step back and to appreciate the smaller things in life and that is exactly how Milly finds herself.

Following a near death experience Milly loses her job and her home and needs rest. Whilst resting she notices that the small things she never saw before were actually the big things.

She sets off on a journey of self discovery and finds the real Milly.

I loved this book from beginning to end. Milly is such a relatable character and Maxines writing is so easy to get lost in.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

After getting hit by a bus, literally, Milly spends a week in a coma and then a few weeks in the hospital recovering. She is forced to make some life changes, partly because her old life moved on without her.

This is one a best chick lit books I have read in awhile. I loved Milly’s humor. The scene early in book where she is looking at apartments is so funny as she tries to convince herself and her friend that the bullet casing outside, mice running in the walls, creepy neighbor, and a front door that won’t shut are fine, just fine.

Milly’s former life required her to be online all the time, up and in season on fashion (expensive!) once she looked up from the phone and looked around her, she realized there is so much more to the world. I think this is a great message not to get too involved in work and enjoy life!

I’m not sure being run over by a bus can be counted as a good thing but it definitely makes Milly stop and rethink her previous life choices. I loved how the mantra for this wonderful read was to stop and look up to see what is around you. So many times we get entrenched on life’s treadmill and this story is a brilliant reminder to make the most of the important things. Great characters and Hector, the gorgeous dog , made this story a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.