Book Review: Love Punked by Nia Lucas

It’s the weekend which hopefully means a chance to snuggle up with a book for many of you. Today, Nia Lucas joins me with the blog tour for her new novel, Love Punked.

When her life is irrevocably altered by a post-Rave tryst on her mother’s floral patio recliner, Erin Roberts’ long-standing relationship with Humiliation takes her down a path that’s not so much ‘less well trodden’, more ‘perilous descent down sheer cliffs’.

Armed with a fierce devotion to her best friend and the unrequited love for the boy she might have accidentally married at age seven, when Erin falls pregnant at sixteen, life veers off at a most unexpected tangent.

Her journey to adulthood is far from ordinary as Erin learns that protecting the hearts of those most precious to you isn’t balm enough when your Love Punked heart is as sore as your freshly tattooed arse.

Whilst raising football prodigies and trying not to get stuck in lifts with Social Work clients who hate her, Erin discovers that sometimes you have to circumnavigate the globe to find the very thing that was there all along.

Erin has just turned sixteen. She is not the most popular of people with her peers but she knows that all she needs is her best friend Lees. If she could just get Daniel to fancy her too, it would make things even better.

However, when one night changes the course of her life, she has to make some very big adjustments with poignant and sometimes hilarious results.

From the first chapter, I knew that I was going to love Erin and her story.

With her being sixteen at the start of this novel, she is the same age I was in the middle of the 90’s (where this book is primarily set,) I found her very relatable. I saw flashes of awkwardness from my teen years in parts of her story. It made me feel quite nostalgic in places.

I couldn’t imagine being a mother at her age.

The plot is wonderfully developed, compelling and it all unfolds at a good pace. When I consider how this book begins, I really couldn’t predict how it was going to end.

The style of writing makes this novel really easy to fall into and I did not want to stop reading. It’s not often that a book has me laughing out loud (at one point, I sniggered so loudly I woke my husband up,) and then crying so quickly.

Erin is a wonderful character. She has her challenges but she has a courage about her that I admire. I seriously wish I had the balls she displays when I was 16. The people around her are great. I wanted to give Gio so many hugs.

She is a strong girl who does her best to rise above the challenges that are thrown at her. I really wanted things to work out.

To see whether it did, you’ll have to read for yourself.

Love Punked surprised me. I knew I was going to like it but I didn’t realise how much. I have quickly become a fan of Nia Lucas and look forward to see what she has coming next.

About Nia: 

Nia is a UK based author of Contemporary women’s fiction who is passionate about telling the stories of strong, sympathetic, entertaining and engaging female characters and the lives that they lead. Her Welsh heritage and her life as a practising Social Worker with teenagers and their families heavily influences her work as does her love of all things 90’s and an adolescence spent immersed in clubbing culture.

Say hi to Nia on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or via her blog.  

Click to view Love Punked on Amazon UK  and Amazon US.

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Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.