Winchester, England, has always been home for Flora, but when her mother dies after a long illness, Flora feels untethered. Her family expects her to apply to university and take a larger role in their tea-shop business, but Flora isn’t so sure. More than ever, she’s the chaotic “hurricane” in her household, and she doesn’t always know how to manage her stormy emotions.
So she decides to escape to Miami without telling anyone—especially her longtime friend Gordon Wallace.
But Flora’s tropical change of scenery doesn’t cast away her self-doubt. When it comes to university, she has no idea which passions she should follow. That’s also true in romance. Flora’s summer abroad lands her in the flashbulb world of teen influencer Baz Marín, a Miami Cuban who shares her love for photography. But Flora’s more conflicted than ever when she begins to see future architect Gordon in a new light.
- Title: A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak
- Author: Laura Taylor Namey
- Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
- Publication Date: September 26, 2023
- Genre: Romance, Historical Fiction
- Source: Digital ARC via Netgalley / Publishers
- Targeted Age Range: Young Adult
- Content Warnings: death, memory loss, grief
- Rating: ★★★★.5
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m often drawn to grief storylines, and that I loved A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, so it’s no surprise that A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak was one of my most anticipated reads of 2023. Set three years after A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak follows Flora, Orion’s sister, as she navigates life after her mother’s passing. With university on the horizon, Flora’s on a deadline to decide what career pathway she wants to pursue, all while trying to draft a speech for her mother’s memorial. When everything ends up being too much, she finds herself fleeing to Miami and hiding out with Lila’s family until Lila’s sister’s wedding.
I was already pretty fond of Flora in A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, when we were introduced to her as a messy hurricane of a girl who was struggling with her mother’s illness, but I really grew to love her in A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak. I loved how Flora’s character was unapologetically messy, and how despite all her faults, she was given the grace to fix her mistakes. A British Girl’s Guide is less focused on Flora’s faults and the hurricane that is Flora (as her loved ones refer to her), as it is her mending the aftermath of the wreckage. Throughout A British Girl’s Guide, I constantly just felt like giving Flora a hug. Transitional periods in life are never fun, and I felt like Flora had a tendency to be too hard on herself a lot of the time. She needed space and needed to get away, and maybe she didn’t go about it in the best way, but I felt like the way she beat herself up about it was a little unwarranted.
Laura Taylor Namey’s depiction of grief resonated with me back then with A Cuban Girl’s Guide and did the same with A British Girl’s Guide. There’s no one way to grieve, and each person experiences grief differently and that really shone through in A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak. One of my favorite things, aside from the grief depiction, was how the characters talked about their grief, and how that seeped into all of their interactions.
Normally, I’m not really a fan of love triangles, but there was something about the love triangle here that really worked for me. I think it was the way each party communicated, as well as the fact that it was pretty predictable from the get go. And the tropes involved being some of my favorites didn’t hurt either. Both Baz and Gordon were so sweet, and I found their dynamics with Flora to be so interesting.
I particularly loved the setting of A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak. Given that we spent so much time in London in A Cuban Girl’s Guide, and we knew so much about Orion’s family and Lila’s British family, it only felt fair for us to spend the majority of Flora’s book with Lila’s family, in Lila’s hometown. It made me appreciate both families more, and I really enjoyed spending time with Lila’s family in this one. The time spent with Lila’s family also put me in the mood to reread A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, so I’m sure that’ll happen soon.
Overall, I genuinely really enjoyed A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak, although not as much as its predecessor.
Links for A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
Laura Taylor Namey is the New York Times and international bestselling author of young adult fiction including Reese’s Book Club pick A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. A proud Cuban-American, she can be found hunting for vintage treasures and wishing she was in London or Paris. She lives in San Diego with her husband and two children.
This former teacher writes young adult novels featuring quirky teens learning to navigate life and love. She holds a BA in Elementary Education from the University of San Diego and is the winner of the Peggy Miller Award for excellence in young adult fiction. A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow has been adapted for film and is expected to release shortly.
