Review: DOWN TO EARTH by Melanie Rose ****

One ordinary day,
one extraordinary experience …

When Michaela Anderson signs up for a parachute jump she gets more than a case of vertigo… Suffering last-minute panic, Michaela’s three colleagues go first. But just as she takes her leap of faith, an almighty gale blows up from nowhere. When she returns to the ground, she finds the airfield deserted, her car gone and the seasons mysteriously changed. Posters nearby proclaim Michaela to have been missing for the last six and a half years…

But Michaela is determined to find out the truth. Was she kidnapped? Is she now suffering amnesia, or has something even more extraordinary occurred? With the help of handsome pilot Matt, Michaela sets out to find the truth. And what she discovers rocks everything she has ever believed in to the core…

A magical tale that will enchant and enthral fans of Cecelia Ahern and Sophie Kinsella.

I've heard so much praise for Melanie Rose that I just had to give her books a try and for some reason I decided to start with this one, I guess mainly because I was intrigued by the mystery at heart. And whoa what a mystery it was! I found most of the book incredibly gripping and I just could not stop reading it as I couldn't wait to find out what happened to Michaela after she jumped from the plane and landed six years in the future ...

As I said, I found the premise oh so engrossing. It's similar to either Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella or What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty, where both main character suffer an accident of some sort and when they come to, years have passed and their lives have changed drastically. These three books have quite a few similarities, but I'd say Down to Earth is the darkest one of them since Michaela actually disappeared during the 'missing' years and this was an actual tragedy that dramatically altered the lives of her closest friends and family ...
So when Alice suddenly reappears after 6 years, she has a LOT to deal with. Her parents' lives have been literally destroyed by their frantic search for their daughter, her once loving boyfriend almost hates her for causing him so much pain, her best friend has hit rock bottom and turned into a completely different person, the pilot who saw her last was suspected of killing her and she can't even prove she's really Michaela Anderson since she was presumed dead years ago.

So yeah, Michaela has an awful lot to come to terms with since her life seems to have changed for the worse in just a few hours, all while trying to figure out what on Earth happened to her and where has she been for the past six years if she hasn't been abducted by aliens, like some people presumed. I found myself racing through the book, hoping that there was a good explanation for the mystery. And was there, you might ask? Well, I'm can't say really since I'm not quite sure what to make of the ending (was it just me or was that a bit confusing?), but I guess it wasn't quite as satisfactory as I had hoped. Part of me knew there couldn't possibly be a good enough and reasonable explanation for Michaela's situation (no idea what though), but I kept hoping I'd be blown away and I wasn't really. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed following this story - the mystery was fantastic and there were quite a few twists and turns along the way too!

I also found myself really connecting to the characters in this book. Their pain was so real to me and I really symphatized with Michaela and her broken mother, her ill boyfriend Calum, his lonely daughter Abbey and others. I like it when books can achieve that - when I don't feel like I'm just observing the characters, but also sharing their pain.

All in all, this was a thrilling and a slightly darker chicklity read with an intriguing premise and a great set of characters! I can definitely understand all the hype surrounding Ms Rose and I'll definitely be reading her other two books too - it's a good thing they're already sitting on my shelf (I bought them as soon as they came out because I simpy couldn't resist the covers - I mean, aren't they GORGEOUS??)!

overall rating:
plot: 4/5 | writing: 4/5 | characters: 4/5 | cover: 4/5