'Luuurve is a many trousered thing…'

This is the eighth instalment in the adventures of Georgia Nicolson – leader of the Ace Gang, devotee of the Snogging Scale and trapped in the Cake Shop of Luuurve. Fans of the series will be delighted that all the tried and tested favourites are here – the idiosyncratic language, the central characters – but Rennison keeps the formula fresh by introducing inventive hilarities and romantic dilemmas in equal measure. New readers are given a sympathetic introduction by means of the helpful appendices – my favourite is the Beginners’ Guide to the Viking Bison Disco Inferno.

The first quarter of the book lacked the laugh-out-loud quality of its predecessors but the narrative recovered to deliver problems all too familiar to teenage girls in a way designed to relieve tensions and offer solutions in a wholly accessible and entertaining way. As Georgia would say – Groove on, Groovsters!