#BlogTour! #Review of ‘Lost and Found’ by Danielle Ryan @aria_fiction #Italy #bookblogger

Can true love prevail when the real and online worlds collide?

Perfect for the fans of Miranda Dickenson and Paige Toon.

Melissa Riva works in Milan as a university researcher. After buying an iPad at

auction, she finds it contains files belonging to its previous owner.

Fascinated by the beautiful photographs of romantic landscapes and views of the

city, she starts her search for the previous owner. Locating him through Facebook,

Melissa can’t resist contacting him.

Melissa and Riccardo begin chatting online. Both of them becoming increasingly

dependent on this strange relationship, though acutely aware that it’s only likely to remain a virtual one.

But when real life bursts in on their digital world, they can’t resist revealing their

true feelings…

What does TWG think?

‘Lost and Found’ could not get any further into the 21st Century if it tried! I mean really, a lost iPad, auctioned iPad, male character & a female character chatting over Facebook; I’m just waiting for the virtual relationship to form! Oh, wait….it already did.

In this day and age, a lot of time is spent chatting to people on social media, engaging in harmless banter and lusting over a vast number of photographs posted. No, I don’t mean THOSE kinds of photos, eeeesh, get your mind out of the gutter! Melissa was taken aback by some rather impressive scenic photographs; making it her mission to find the face behind the photo. Oh she found the face alright, even if the gentleman did seem to be the proud owner of multiple faces…

If I am about to read a book written by an author I haven’t heard of before, nine times out of ten I take a peek at the reviews on Goodreads beforehand. I don’t read them in-depth, merely skim reading to get a feel for the author; ‘Lost and Found’ was no different. I’ll be honest, after reading the book for myself, the lack of sparkle on the ratings and the rather comme ci, comme Ça reviews I had spotted before I began reading rather surprised me! Don’t get me wrong, some of the phrases used in the sex scenes made my toes curl in embarrassment! If you’re going to describe something of the sexual nature, using the proper terminology would be advantageous, especially as I didn’t realise female genitalia was called ‘the sex’. My bugbear!

Now I have that out of the way, I can now say that I rather enjoyed this rather modern and brave version of a love story. I say ‘brave’ because some cynics reading the novel may think of Melissa and Riccardo’s situation as completely unrealistic, whereas the ‘happily ever after’ type readers may be on Amazon buying their wedding hat before the novel even finished. To put it in another way, I felt that Danielle Ryan was very brave and bold to put such an outlandish, (yet possible relatable), situation in the core of her storyline. It’s bound to be the main talking point of the storyline, and if it isn’t I want to know why! I’m not the most romantic person on this planet, I fully admit that! So yes, I did think the two characters relationship to be a little bit ‘realllyyyyyy?’ at times, but that didn’t stop me enjoying seeing how the events unfolded, nor did it stop me eagerness to find out the outcome. Does the boy get the girl? Or does the girl tell the boy to go and do one?

I really enjoy reading novels set in Italy which have been written by Italian authors as I consider them to be my guilty pleasure! The way an Italian author can describe their own country in their own storyline, is such a beautiful thing to read. Instead of describing Italy like a travel brochure, Danielle Ryan described Milan in such a vivid and incredible way, it was as though the buildings became familiar and every scent was bottled up ready to be smelt again. You really need to know a country to be able to write it into a storyline so flawlessly, and obviously Danielle Ryan knows her own country!

I’ll be honest, ‘Lost and Found’ didn’t give me that firework feel, however, it was a rather enjoyable and humorous tale that kept me entertained the whole way through. The storyline wasn’t heavy, the characters didn’t require an additional pair of hands to sort out their lives (the reader), and the overall plot didn’t need TOO much of my brain power. In all fairness, it was a light-hearted, pleasant, and fun trip to Italy, which took my mind off my own troubles for a little while. Can’t really argue with that now, can you?

Thanks Aria.

Amazon // Kobo // iBooks // Google Play

Author bio

Danielle Ryan was born in Como, Italy and has a degree in both Economics and

Communication Sciences. She writes with a passion and devotes every free minute

of her day to her work. Danielle is a bestselling author in Italy. Her debut

novel Finding You reached no. 1 on Italian Amazon.

Thank you Aria Fiction for inviting me on Danielle Ryan’s blog tour, you can follow the rest of the tour via the details in the picture below: