Secret, Schemes and Sewing Machines Review

Secret, Schemes and Sewing Machines by Katy Cannon

“You can be important just by being yourself – and yourself can be anyone you want.”

Grace was supposed to be the star of the school’s play this year but when issues at home lead to her missing auditions she’s left being an understudy and in charge of costumes and props – 5 years of working her way to the top down the drain.

Conner is the drama teacher’s stepson and his first impression of Grace isn’t good – a drama queen demanding she be the lead in the play. Their relationship is rocky at the start but having to work with each other they slowly learn that judging people on a single act doesn’t mean you know the person’s personality.

It isn’t listed on Goodreads but this book is a companion novel to Love, Lies and Lemon Pie which I hadn’t read – the plotline was explained in the book and there were recurring characters. So maybe if I’d read the previous book I would have liked Grace better because her character’s supposed to have gone though a lot of change and I might have connected with the characters better as the book was written in a way in which the characters had previously been introduced .

Grace at first was pretty annoying and whiny but then she changed and Conner also went from annoying to likable. Both characters annoyed me at first because Grace was going on about her talents and not being a star and also being a bad friend to Lottie whilst Conner was just a judgemental guy who popped up at random times. As their relationships grew and the plot progressed the story did get better.

But I really disliked Conner with his issues with what Grace did for Yasmin, I totally get why he was feeling that way and why what she did wasn’t perfectly on timed but he made her feel like crap for doing the right thing!

What I liked about this book was that it was also very relatable; hanging out with friends, food, drama and having fun. It’s a light read with some serious topics in it.

Also coming from the UK I could relate to her school life – I used to be part of plays at school and also in year 7/8 it was compulsory to do Technology which included sewing but nothing major like dresses it was just bags and cushions and so the information with the different sewing techniques and what to make was interesting if you’re into sewing.

★★★☆☆