Difference between revisions of "Newest Women's Fiction Reviews"
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| + | |author= Rachel Hore | ||
| + | |title= The House on Bellevue Gardens | ||
| + | |rating= 4 | ||
| + | |genre= Women's Fiction | ||
| + | |summary= Leonie was left a large, somewhat run-down London house by a friend, some years previously. She's an artist, and something of a bohemian, and lets out rooms at low price to people in need. There's Peter, who occupies the basement and lives in squalor, which - occasionally - she tries to clean up. There are also an elderly Indian couple, Hari and Bela, who have been there for some time, and a young and rather shy man called Rick who is writing a graphic novel. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471130789</amazonuk> | ||
| + | }} | ||
{{newreview | {{newreview | ||
|author= Jenny Colgan | |author= Jenny Colgan | ||
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|summary= January is an unusual name for a reasonably normal girl, a single mum to a daughter (and a dog). She has a few unusual characteristics, though. Her dog comes to work with her (at a property company where, before you ask, she's not the boss or even close to it). She was raised by her grandparents following the sudden death of her parents. And her daughter, though adorable, has a few issues which can make everyday life a bit tricky. None of this really matters, though. Because, as the title suggests, this is a straight up love story (or search for love story) and it's a pretty brilliant one. | |summary= January is an unusual name for a reasonably normal girl, a single mum to a daughter (and a dog). She has a few unusual characteristics, though. Her dog comes to work with her (at a property company where, before you ask, she's not the boss or even close to it). She was raised by her grandparents following the sudden death of her parents. And her daughter, though adorable, has a few issues which can make everyday life a bit tricky. None of this really matters, though. Because, as the title suggests, this is a straight up love story (or search for love story) and it's a pretty brilliant one. | ||
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848669011</amazonuk> | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848669011</amazonuk> | ||
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Revision as of 15:47, 8 March 2016
The House on Bellevue Gardens by Rachel Hore
Leonie was left a large, somewhat run-down London house by a friend, some years previously. She's an artist, and something of a bohemian, and lets out rooms at low price to people in need. There's Peter, who occupies the basement and lives in squalor, which - occasionally - she tries to clean up. There are also an elderly Indian couple, Hari and Bela, who have been there for some time, and a young and rather shy man called Rick who is writing a graphic novel. Full review...
The Little Shop of Happy Ever After by Jenny Colgan
I loved the introduction to this book. It explains that it's a story for readers who love books, and outlines with light humour the places where the author recommends settling down with a good book. I related strongly to the idea of reading in bed, and forgetting who is who as I drop off to sleep; this is my usual mode. Travelling is also, in my experience, an excellent time to read. I don't read in the bath - and the author's description of books drying out on radiators conjured up a depressing image - but I enjoyed all her other suggestions. Full review...
Waltzing in Vienna by C G Metts
Filmmaker C G Metts has written four nonfiction books, several of them of local interest to South Carolina natives and visitors. This is his first novel, however, and you may be surprised to learn that it is an enjoyable chick lit/women's fiction romp. Three girlfriends meet up again in Charleston; in their early forties, they're facing turning points in their professional and personal lives. As they reminisce about summers spent together at Folly Beach during college and resume their communal marijuana smoking habit, they summon the courage to decide what they want from middle age and refresh their sex lives. Full review...
The Dyslexic Hearts Club by Hanneke Hendrix and David Doherty (translator)
I recently reviewed a novel by another Scandinavian novelist, Helle Helle, This Should be Written in the Present Tense, and I expected this novel by Hanneke Hendrix to be very similar. It wasn't. That's not totally a bad thing – many people will enjoy the fast-paced, dialogue driven novel that The Dyslexic Hearts Club is. It just wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Full review...
The Gessami Residence by Jane L Gibson
Jenny Walker has been a widow for three years. She's had support from her parents (Dad's still a bit protective), her two sons, who are at university, and her three girl friends. The four women have had a meal together every week but now they've decided to go on holiday for a fortnight. One of the women - Rose - is in the business so she's in charge of making the arrangements and she insists that they have to turn up at the airport before they find out their destination. Ibiza wasn't quite what they were expecting, but then three of the four women are unattached (Amanda is married - in an unenthusiastic sort of way) and they all like to drink and flirt. What couldn't go right? Full review...
The Child's Secret by Amanda Brooke
There are obvious suspects in any missing child case, with the parents often at the top of the list. In the case of 8 year old Jasmine, though, there's someone else who catches the police's eye: local park worker Sam who has something of an unconventional relationship with the girl. Full review...
Strictly Between Us by Jane Fallon
Tamsin and Michelle have been friends for decades. Aside from parents, they're the longest relationship in the book, longer than Michelle and Patrick's marriage, longer than Bea has worked as Tamsin's assistant. All four characters feature heavily, though, in a story that is always moving and never boring. Full review...
Blueprints by Barbara Delinsky
Everyone - even Jamie MacAfee - thinks that her life is perfect. She's engaged to Brad, a lawyer with her family's building firm and is sure that she'll manage to set a wedding date as soon as work pressure eases up. She's employed by the family firm too, as an architect, and appears as one of the presenters on a television renovation show. Her best friend is her mother who's a master carpenter and the host on the same television show - and Caroline has managed to build up her confidence again after a messy divorce. What can go wrong? Full review...
Stars of Fortune (Guardians Trilogy) by Nora Roberts
Sasha suffers from nightmares. The scary details may vary but the gist of the contents remain the same: the voice of a stranger, the presence of evil and the faces of five people on an island, none of which/whom she knows. She tries all she can to exorcise the darkness including transferring the faces and locations into her art but even the refuge of her talent and livelihood doesn't work. In a moment of bravery Sasha discovers the identity of the island and travels to where she knows it will all begin and possibly end. For there somewhere on Crete the other five wait and the evil materialises along with the events that three goddesses began eons ago. Full review...
Sisters on Bread Street by Frances Brody
Julia and Margaret are the Wood sisters, struggling to hoist themselves out of a life of poverty in Leeds just before the outbreak of the first world war. Well, Julia is struggling. Margaret sees her way out as being through marriage to a rich suffragette's son, Thomas. She's an apprentice milliner and beautiful, but both sisters have a disadvantage and it's one which grows bigger as war approaches: their father is German. Full review...
The Unfriended by Jane McLoughlin
The Unfriended lays its cards out on the table right from the first page: this is a novel all about feminism. It's going to have those conversations, and it's going to deliver some opinions, and it's not going to apologise for doing so. Full review...
Shadow Spell (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy Book 2) by Nora Roberts
Spoilers ahead for Book 1, Dark Witch. Life goes on for the O'Dwyer cousins but that doesn’t mean they've given up on Cabahn, the evil one who has stalked their family for centuries. He hasn't given up on them either unfortunately. As the cousins' resolve increases so does their links with their 13th century ancestors from when their powers – as well as their problems – originated. Meanwhile the problem of their friend Meara Quinn may seem paltry by comparison but it's still a problem. She's desperate not to fall in love with Connor O'Dwyer. Good luck with that Meara! Full review...
Boyfriend by Christmas by Jenny Stallard
Genie works as a writer for an online women's lifestyle site, the sort that tells you to eat at the cereal café down the street (before everyone starts rioting outside), advises you on where to get the best seasonal homewares, reviews getaways from cottages in the Cotswolds to mansions in Miami, and throws in interviews with important/influential/IT women for good measure. Genie, though, has a rather niche role. She writes on dating and love and being single in the city. But since she's been single a while, her editor is getting fed up with it and sets her a challenge: find a boyfriend by Christmas, and blog about the process. Full review...
The First Wife by Erica Spindler
I should have guessed from their names (Bailey and Logan) that this story was set in the States, but initially I was too busy identifying with the blurb on the back to notice. 10 year age gap? Check. Magnificent estate? Check. First wife? Check. Even if that doesn't make you feel as if you are reading about your own life, which is of course how it made me feel, there's a lot to drag you in to this one immediately and I was utterly delighted that my initial eagerness to read this one was sustained to the very last page. Full review...
The Soldier's Wife by Pamela Hart
...none of it was real, until the last moment when his hand, the tips of his fingers, left the tips of hers and he was gone.
Turned into just another soldier.
Ruby and Jimmy are newly-weds full of big dreams and plans for the future, but all of that will have to wait. It is 1915 and the world is in the grip Great War, sweeping Jimmy away to fight battles in far-off Gallipoli. Ruby feels like she's in limbo; no longer an innocent child but not quite a fully-fledged married lady. Not wanting to return home, she decides to stay in Sydney, to keep herself occupied as she waits out the war, longing for the return of her beloved husband. She rents a room from a local landlady and finds a job as a bookkeeper at a Timber Merchant. Although she initially takes the job to keep herself occupied and earn a little money, she soon falls into a comfortable routine and starts to enjoy her new-found independence and responsibility. Full review...
Don't Get Me Wrong by Marianne Kavanagh
Don't get me wrong, this was an enjoyable read but it's not one you'll rush and tell your friends about. Full review...
Fly Away Home by Marina Warner
How would you subvert a fairy tale? You know enough of them and enough about them to do it, so think on it. Would you give a mermaid a smartphone? Would you pepper them with pop stars, and perhaps let them be witness to the Schadenfreude caused by a cave that's sacred to native Canadians? Would you, in the light of their characters usually being routine, interchangeable tropes, give them a closely-observed personality – as seen here in a teacher's interior thoughts when faced with a piece of East Anglian lore? Would you take the exoticism of the east, and Egypt in particular, and see it in the light of a musical teacher on a zero-hours contract who ends up muttering to himself, directing traffic in the middle of the road, or from the remove of an elderly man with swollen feet in orthopaedic sandals with a message from the past? Certainly these two are not the standard Arabian Nights-styled pieces… Full review...
After You by Jojo Moyes
After writing the massively popular Me Before You, all of Jojo Moyes' readers were clamouring for more. Having been on the edge of our armchairs during the story, we all wanted to know what happened to Lou next. Would she be okay? Would she live her life with passion? Where would she go next? So the arrival of this story is a special treat, as it continues the tale of Lou, although perhaps not in the way we had imagined… Full review...
The Dress Shop Of Dreams by Menna Van Praag
Cambridge is a city of winding streets and cobbled alleyways and in such a street you will find A Stich In Time, a tiny dress shop filled to bursting with dresses that will take your breath away. Etta Sparks spends her days crafting gowns from jewel-coloured velvets and beaded silks that are unlike any dresses you have seen before; once you try one of Etta's creations on - and with a few stitches from her expert and rather magical needle - these incredible, amazing garments have the power to reach within your soul and extract your deepest desire and hidden-away dreams. Full review...
Shopaholic to the Rescue by Sophie Kinsella
After a year of waiting (and somewhat frantic googling for the release date), Becky returns with the latest in the Shopaholic series, and guess what? It was completely worth the wait. Full review...
I'll Meet You In Heaven by Jill Thrussell
Rebecca and Gideon were made for each other. They've been married for 10 years and, apart from their unfulfilled desire for children, all is perfect, love remaining at the centre of their relationship. Well, all was perfect until their 10th anniversary dinner and that fatal a fatal car crash. The next thing they know, they arrive in a garden to be told that they'll be sent back to Earth for 3 months to live separately as a test. Why? More importantly, would they be able to find each other again afterwards? Full review...
The Sea Between Us by Emylia Hall
To her parents, the move to Cornwall was an escape to a better way of life. For city-girl Robyn, it was wet, remote and miserable and she was counting down the days to University and her return to civilization. Desperate for something to do to entertain herself, Robyn takes a wetsuit and surfboard and makes her way to a secluded cove. An inexperienced surfer, she soon gets into difficulty, but is rescued from the sea by a young local man called Jago. From that moment on, the two lives are intertwined by an invisible bond; a bond that will be tested and stretched during the years that follow. Full review...
The Dress by Kate Kerrigan
In 1935 a young man left his cruel father, stealing from his kindly schoolteacher to fund his trip to Dublin. Years later he left for New York. He'd never dreamed of being rich, but hard work brought wealth his way. He'd never thought about a wife either, but it seemed the right thing to do and Frank Fitzpatrick married Joy. She may well have been the most beautiful woman in New York, but she adored Frank. He was, well, ambivalent about her. For her thirtieth birthday Joy decided that she was going to throw a party at the Waldorf and for this she required the most stunning dress ever made. The Dress. She hoped that it would bring Frank back to her. Full review...
The Time Of The Clockmaker by Anna Caltabiano
The Time Of The Clockmaker is not so much a sequel to 'The Seventh Miss Hatfield, rather it's more like The Seventh Miss Hatfield : Part Deux. Cynthia (who is now the aforementioned Seventh Miss Rebecca Hatfield and from this point we shall refer to her as such) has just seen her predecessor and mentor, the somewhat intimidating Sixth Miss Hatfield, murdered in the only way it is possible for an immortal to die – she has been slain by another immortal. Forced to flee for her life (with the clock that governs Rebecca's ability to travel through time), Rebecca is stunned to find herself back in the Court of King Henry VIII. It seems that the hands of her mysterious clock have somehow inadvertently been moved, during the course of a break-in, and Tudor England is the backdrop for Miss Hatfield's fight for survival. Full review...
The Things We Do For Love by Alice Peterson
January is an unusual name for a reasonably normal girl, a single mum to a daughter (and a dog). She has a few unusual characteristics, though. Her dog comes to work with her (at a property company where, before you ask, she's not the boss or even close to it). She was raised by her grandparents following the sudden death of her parents. And her daughter, though adorable, has a few issues which can make everyday life a bit tricky. None of this really matters, though. Because, as the title suggests, this is a straight up love story (or search for love story) and it's a pretty brilliant one. Full review...
