Difference between revisions of "Newest Women's Fiction Reviews"
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| + | |author=Shelley Harris | ||
| + | |title=Vigilante | ||
| + | |rating=4.5 | ||
| + | |genre=Women's Fiction | ||
| + | |summary=Jenny Pepper is a forty-something wife and mother who is stuck wondering where her life has gone. Privately, Jenny is jealous of her husband, he has a wonderful creative career that people can’t wait to hear more about, while Jenny’s work as a mother and her job at a charity bookshop seems to put a stopper on conversation. Jenny envies her daughter, with her youthful figure and a whole life stretched out in front of her. When tidying up one night, Jenny discovers her husband’s secret and just like that her life changes. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297864610</amazonuk> | ||
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|author=Elizabeth Kiem | |author=Elizabeth Kiem | ||
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|summary=Lizzy thinks everything is going well in her life until it all goes startlingly wrong. Her boyfriend dumps her very publicly whilst she is dressed as Henry VIII at a thirtieth birthday party and unfortunately the whole debacle is filmed and ends up on YouTube. She becomes known as 'head butt girl' as she is filmed demonstrating her fury. Her PR job is also going nowhere as she finds herself having to try and promote some very strange concepts. At least she has her two best friends for solace and they can all be found, many evenings, drinking away their sorrows and putting the world to rights. | |summary=Lizzy thinks everything is going well in her life until it all goes startlingly wrong. Her boyfriend dumps her very publicly whilst she is dressed as Henry VIII at a thirtieth birthday party and unfortunately the whole debacle is filmed and ends up on YouTube. She becomes known as 'head butt girl' as she is filmed demonstrating her fury. Her PR job is also going nowhere as she finds herself having to try and promote some very strange concepts. At least she has her two best friends for solace and they can all be found, many evenings, drinking away their sorrows and putting the world to rights. | ||
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552166855</amazonuk> | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552166855</amazonuk> | ||
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Revision as of 10:10, 2 January 2015
Vigilante by Shelley Harris
Jenny Pepper is a forty-something wife and mother who is stuck wondering where her life has gone. Privately, Jenny is jealous of her husband, he has a wonderful creative career that people can’t wait to hear more about, while Jenny’s work as a mother and her job at a charity bookshop seems to put a stopper on conversation. Jenny envies her daughter, with her youthful figure and a whole life stretched out in front of her. When tidying up one night, Jenny discovers her husband’s secret and just like that her life changes. Full review...
Hider, Seeker, Secret Keeper by Elizabeth Kiem
I was caught up by this novel from the first pages and read it with absorption in a single sitting. The young heroine, Lana Dukovskaya, is a third generation ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet but the experiences of her mother and grandmother are shrouded and lost. Her grandmother's name, we discover, has been erased from the records and her mother is a troubled secretive figure. Lana challenges the conventional notion of a ballerina: she has close cropped hair, loves high speed motor bikes and most of all she wants to experiment with the repertoire. Full review...
It's In The Cards by Pamela Fudge
Ellen Carson was just slightly put out that her family arranged a surprise birthday party for her fortieth, but more annoyed that they wouldn't accept that she was quite happy being single and unattached. She had a successful career as a card designer, a home she loved and no intentions of getting into any long-term relationship. What did make her wonder was why her brothers and sisters were so keen to get her involved with any remotely eligible male when their own relationships were so dysfunctional. She had no interest in the two men from her past who have come back into her life - or the one who has been hovering round the edges more in hope than expectation. Full review...
Accidents of Marriage by RS Meyers
What if your marriage is crumbling? What if you are living on borrowed time? What if a terrible accident occurs and your role in the family has to change from absent father to man about the house? Would you rise to the challenge or add this to a long list of things you don’t do well? Full review...
The Christmas Surprise by Jenny Colgan
I do like Jenny Colgan’s books. At least, that’s my impression although I’m surprised to discover that I had only previously read two of them. Her titles seem to feature food-related topics, and this particular one is third in a series about a young woman called Rosie Hopkins. She lives in a small village in Derbyshire with her boyfriend Stephen, and runs a sweet shop. Full review...
Almost Perfect by Delia Franklin
Almost Perfect is the debut novel for Delia Franklin, and comes with a delightfully quirky front cover, which is part of what attracted me to it. It starts well, too. Gloria, who works as housekeeper for a late middle-aged farmer called Will, is happily surveying her vegetable patch. The tractor approaches and as Will climbs down, his mobile phone alerts him to the fact that his only granddaughter Lucy has had a fall, and is in a serious state in hospital. Full review...
The Baron Next Door by Erin Knightley
Charity is hoping to enjoy a relaxing break in Bath, attending the music festival with her beloved grandmother, Lady Effington. Charity doesn't just love music, she lives music; it is an intrinsic part of her very being and she is never happier than when playing her latest compositions on her pianoforte. She cannot understand why anyone would hate music, so when her new neighbour Baron Cadgwith turns up on her doorstep, demanding that she keep the infernal racket to a minimum, she declares war on the insufferably rude Baron next door. The result is a light-hearted and sweet Regency romance that sees the most unlikely pair begin to bond, despite their differences. Full review...
The Year I Met You by Cecelia Ahern
Jasmine is the main protagonist of this book, and also the narrator. She’s single and has just lost her job, much to her dismay. She’s the kind of person who likes to be busy and to have a purpose in life, but the conditions of her former employment mean that she’s on a year’s ‘gardening leave’: she receives a full salary but is not allowed to start another job for a full year. Full review...
The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty
For years, Scribbly Gum has been a tourist trap, with crowds flocking from the mainland to visit the untouched site of the Munro Baby mystery, when a newborn was found abandoned on the island, her parents vanished. The baby is now a grandmother herself, but the mystery lingers on, and, well, it’s quite a good business for the residents. Silver linings and all that. But now Connie, one of two sisters who found the baby, has passed away, and left her house to a stranger, an outsider, someone who doesn't really belong on the island. Will Sophie’s arrival disturb the peace? Are long hidden secrets about to surface? And what will it mean for the extended family if they do? Full review...
The Repercussions by Catherine Hall
Once home from her role as a photo-journalist in Afghanistan, Jo decides to move into the Brighton flat that her great aunt Elizabeth has bequeathed her. While searching through the belongings that go with the home, she finds Elizabeth's WWI diaries from the time that she nursed wounded servicemen from the Indian Corps at the Brighton Pavilion. These entries cause her to reflect on her time recording the more current war and enables her to open up to her ex-lover Susie in a series of letters, telling her how it was, the lives of those she met out there, what it did to them and, indeed, to her. Full review...
The King's Sister by Anne O'Brien
It's England in 1380 and 17 year old Elizabeth of Lancaster has always dreamt of her betrothal and the sort of love of which balladeers sing. So when she meets the person her father has lined up, her face drops to say the least. The Earl of Pembroke is eight years old so she's not pleased. However one day love will find her and cruelly cause her to choose between the love of her life and family with fatal consequences. Full review...
One Step Closer To You by Alice Peterson
Single mum Polly has a lot of baggage, but it all basically boils down to two things, boys and booze. She’s been to hell and back, but for right now, she seems to be doing ok, holding down a job in a café, looking after son Louis and staying off the sauce. She’s even in a position to help those she meets, like her fellow AA-ers and single dad Ben at school who is adjusting to his new role. Full review...
Indian Summer by Marcia Willett
Mungo is a retired actor and director. His brother Archie is a landowner, struggling to make ends meet. Kit is a good friend who comes to stay, wanting a safe place while she decides whether or not to get in touch with a former boyfriend. Neighbours include Emma, an army wife with two small children who is tempted to an affair with a friend of her husband’s, and the elderly brothers Philip and Billy who have a secret that’s been hidden for forty years... Full review...
The Twilight Hour by Nicci Gerrard
Eleanor has been persuaded by her children to seriously consider sheltered accommodation. At the age of 94 and blind, she isn't considered safe rattling around a big old house. She doesn't surrender without conditions though: before she considers moving out, a stranger should be employed to sort her photos and papers before burning them. The family agree and Peter is appointed. Gradually he realises why Eleanor doesn’t want her children to see the documents as the story of hidden life, love and loss is revealed. Full review...
Cover Your Eyes by Adele Geras
For London fashion journalist Megan forbidden love ends suddenly and painfully, just when she thinks it will blossom into something lasting and legitimate. Elsewhere, in the countryside, Eva Conway lives with her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughters in Salix House – the house that Eva used to call her own when she was a famous fashion designer. Now she feels alone, even in the heart of her family. Not only this but she also faces the loss of the home that means so much to her. As Megan and Eva's paths cross they discover that each of them has a dark guilty secret eating away at them, but then Salix House has secrets too. Full review...
The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes
Stella is an author working on her second book. Though now back in Ireland, she talks of a life in New York. It sounds fabulous. But something has changed. Whatever it is, we’re not sure. Maybe the mighty have fallen, the stars have stopped colliding. Either way, that adventure is over as the book starts. It’s not where the story starts, though, and we’re soon plunged back into the past, with the events that have lead Stella to this point. First on the list, a serious illness, without which nothing that followed would have happened, or at least not in the way it did. This may sound confusing but the book is anything but, and despite its great length, I sped through it. Full review...
The Seafront Tea Rooms by Vanessa Greene
Charlie, Kat and Seraphine, are strangers brought together in the Seafront Tea Rooms by their mutual love of afternoon tea. Kat is a young, single mum struggling to get by while her ex provides very little help, Charlie is a heartbroken journalist writing a tea feature for her magazine while visiting her difficult sister, and French Seraphine has come across the channel to au pair, improve her English and get some perspective on a new, complicated relationship. Full review...
A Most Desirable Marriage by Hilary Boyd
Jo and Lawrence have been married for nearly forty years. It has been a good marriage and they are both looking forward to spending more time together and pursuing new interests once Lawrence has retired. However, as the time approaches Jo notices that Lawrence appears more edgy and withdrawn. She puts it down to pre-retirement nerves; nothing to really worry about. So, when Lawrence makes a confession to her immediately after his retirement party, she couldn't have been more surprised. She realises that her husband has been living a secret life and that changes everything: instead of anticipating their rosy future together, she's now looking forward to the prospect of life as a single woman. Full review...
Zemindar by Valerie Fitzgerald
1850s India: Laura Hewitt accompanies her newly married cousin Emily Flood and Emily's husband Charles to the exotic sub-continent for a visit to Charles' half-brother Oliver Erskine. Although none of the travellers have ever met Oliver, many of the people they encounter have heard of him and the way he rules his small fiefdom as its Zemindar. These stories tantalise Laura as the information conflicts and she's unable to develop a mental picture of the man. That's not all that's conflicting: there's an increasing feeling of unrest in this furthest outpost of Queen Victoria's empire which will eventually lead to one of the bloodiest episodes in Indo-British history. Laura, Emily and Charles are naïve, but that won't save them from what's to come – something beyond their worst nightmares. Full review...
The Idea of Him by Holly Peterson
Allie Crawford seemed to have it made. She was married to Wade - the sort of man who made other women drool, had a job in a high-profile Manhattan PR firm and two kids whom she adored. What could be better? What could go wrong? Well, it looked as though something was going wrong when Allie found Wade locked in their laundry room with a decidedly glamorous blonde. There had been a bit of a blip in their marriage whilst Allie was breastfeeding their younger child, but Allie thought that Wade had learned his lesson and would be careful about hurting her in future. Full review...
What I Love About You by Rachel Gibson
Natalie is the girl next door when Blake moves to town but it’s neither love nor even friendship at first sight. Sure, her daughter might have taken a shine to the handsome stranger who likes to keep himself to himself but to Natalie he’s arrogant and obnoxious. Still, you can’t live next door to someone and never run into them, just as you can’t avoid your neighbours in a small town, and since Truly, Idaho fits the bill on both, they’re going to see each other. Full review...
Your Beautiful Lies by Louise Douglas
South Yorkshire 1984: Annie Howarth comes from a mining family and is married to William, a police superintendent. Although she and their daughter have all the societal and financial status they could need, Annie's life is becoming very uncomfortable as the miners begin a strike that will become violent on both sides of the divide. It's either an illegal strike or assertion of rights depending on the side you're on but unfortunately Annie isn't permitted to choose. However this is only the start of her problems. Tom Greenwood, a former boyfriend, is back on the streets after serving a prison sentence for manslaughter and he has unfinished business. The problem for Annie is that the unfinished business is with her, eventually threatening her world and possibly even her life. Full review...
The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness
Historian witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont are back home in the 21st century but now face the tragic news of Aunt Sarah's partner, Em's death. Hard-to-get-along-with Baldwin has taken over as head of the de Clairmont clan and is making life dangerously difficult for Diana, Matthew and their unborn twins. If this isn't enough, they still need to find and remove the secret manuscript, Ashmole 782 – the Book of Life. However, they have very dangerous competition. Full review...
The 49th Day by Helen Noble
After escaping a disastrous marriage, Katherine Walsh travels to an island retreat in Wales in order to pick up the pieces of her life, relax and decide future direction. However, rest and recreation isn't all she discovers. During therapy sessions her ancient past is unlocked and odd happenings that have haunted her for years start to make sense. Katherine also realises that it may be to her benefit to learn how to trust a man again but the chance of love isn't her biggest surprise. She appears to be pregnant so any decisions she makes about her future must include the new life within her. Full review...
It Had to Be You by Ellie Adams
Lizzy thinks everything is going well in her life until it all goes startlingly wrong. Her boyfriend dumps her very publicly whilst she is dressed as Henry VIII at a thirtieth birthday party and unfortunately the whole debacle is filmed and ends up on YouTube. She becomes known as 'head butt girl' as she is filmed demonstrating her fury. Her PR job is also going nowhere as she finds herself having to try and promote some very strange concepts. At least she has her two best friends for solace and they can all be found, many evenings, drinking away their sorrows and putting the world to rights. Full review...
