Series in Review #4: Laurel Heights

From time to time, I’ve mentioned on this blog my growing love for Kate Perry. No, not the singer – the writer. I discovered her quite by accident – she was offering a free book on Kobo. And as far as marketing goes? That one free book definitely paid of as far as I’m concerned. Because at this point? I’ve read a majority of Kate Perry’s books – and the Laurel Heights-series? Probably my favourite of the bunch!

 The series

Here’s something I love: a good series that goes on for long enough that you actually feel like you’re not missing out on information because it’s ending. Here’s something else I like: a series that allows you to read the books as stand alones, a long time from each other, or even out of order. And you guessed it: the Laurel Height-series offers both of those!

In total, the Laurel-Height series consists of no less than 10 novels, as well as a couple of novella’s for in between. In order to make this somewhat clearer? Here are some diagramsI made to introduce you to the characters and their books – just click “details” if you want to read all of them, or skip over them to a brief summary of the entire series!

The short version: “Laurel Heights” is a part of San Francisco where several women (mainly) live, work, meet and fall in love. Each book features one main couple and one secondary couple. Usually the main couple has at least one character that’s been “adopted” from one of the previous novels – above, that’s noted by their name being in colour. (And yes, I spent entirely too much time on those :p )

And a fun little fact: the last two books? So the 10th novel, Loved by You, and the novella #10.5, Wrapped in You both offer a segway into another of Kate Perry’s series, Summerhill. And as you would have it, that’s the next series I’ll be talking about in “Series in Review”!

The opinion

Let’s be real – if you’re reading a series like this? It’s not for the “serious literature”. It’s because you want something fluffy, quick, comforting that’ll make you feel all nice and fuzzy inside. Luckily, Kate Perry knows how to deliver on that front.

As you might have noted from all my diagrams, it can get a bit difficult to keep track of who’s who and how the internal timeline works – and there are one or two novels where even the author seemed to get somewhat confused on that.

That being said, the good thing about this series is that it offers something for everybody. There’s all kind of people, occupations, and of course – instalove. But that’s a bit of a common thread throughout Perry’s work, and she does actually execute it rather well. There’s not many authors who can write something as (often) unbelievable as instalove, and still get away with the rest of the plotdevelopment. And maybe my favourite thing about all of this series? Perry manages to insert the characters from previous and following novels in such a natural way that – quite often – you don’t realise you’ve already seen them, until they get an entire novel dedicated to their story!

The rating: 3.5/5

Again: this isn’t the kind of thing you read to change your perspective on life. However, if you need a series that will, at times, give you butterflies, make you smile a lot, and just in general will leave you feeling just that little bit more relaxed? Then Laurel Heights is just the series for you!

-Saar