MerrilyMe

When I'm not being Merry Raymond of Patch of Puddles, I'm writing as MerrilyMe. Unless I'm selling toys. Or parenting.

chick lit

Book Review #18 A Perfect Proposal by Katie Fforde

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Katie Fforde has long been one of the authors I rely on for a cheerful easy read that makes me feel good. I bought my first book of hers, The Rose Revived, when I was at college and it has remained one of fail-safe favourites through the years. Up until a few years ago, I read each one as it came out and always enjoyed them; then there was a period of time when her heroines became women ahead of me in their time line and I couldn’t relate and a couple of novels where perhaps I had read too many by one person and they lost their magic. On reflection, I think that says more about where I was at the time and how my reading changed; I wanted to be surprised more and stretched more and perhaps you shouldn’t look for that in books which are unashamedly chick lit 🙂

Katie is a friendly soul on Twitter and I’ve been enjoying chatting to her, which motivated me to download some of her back catalogue on to my Kindle. A Perfect Proposal is a return to her ‘young slip of a thing’ characters and, with daughters growing up around me, they are somehow appealing again. It feels like the days of working in cafes might be behind me, but they probably aren’t far off becoming part of household life again and Sophie was believable, if something of a cautionary tale in how not to become a pushover. The story had a flavour of American, New York life to it, reminiscent of some of Jane Green’s novels, which made for a change of scene that was fun and if the love story twists didn’t stun me into gobsmacked silence, there was plenty of familiar ‘oh god, will this work out… is he a rat or a duck?’ to it. The two older members of the cast, around whom the plot revolves to a greater extent, were lovely – I wanted to go and meet them – and I was giggling at the description of a really hideous element to Sophie’s family, who made a cameo appearance 😆

What I missed for a while in her stories was some of the “let’s do the show right here!” immediacy; I loved the way her original books focused on detail down to ‘clean the boat, make the tea, what the hell am I doing on this side of town with no money?’ – it always feels like I am right in the book when a story is like that, the nitty gritty of problem solving and life all laid out to sink right into. A Perfect Proposal had more of that again and I enjoyed it more for the descriptions of train journeys and trying to find places to stay for the night.

I’m back to enjoying her books again and am now rightly pleased to have several more that I can wile away the Summer on – hurrah for Kindles and Katie Fforde!!!

Book Review #17 Chances by Freya North

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I’ve always been a huge Freya North fan; she writes great books, her characters are sassy and pithy and her story lines unpredictable and wise and her prose is witty and sexy and makes you want to read more. I’ve loved all the books she’s written and they’ve grown up along side me more or less; Chloe suited me when I was raw and new and Cat when I was ready for a challenge and Thea when I was needing to think about what I wanted and what sacrifices were necessary and reasonable.

I like her too because I once emailed her in response to a dedication in the back of her book and she replied and I appreciate people who make that sort of effort. I’ve enjoyed reading her blog recently too and so was looking forward to Chances coming out. If I was made a bit sad that she deleted a comment I left there (which went something along the lines of ‘I’m really hoping you’ve written a book that isn’t about people dying or babies because I’m really looking forward to enjoying another of your novels’ in what I thought was a cheerful if ironic voice) perhaps I understood better when I’d read it, because in fact the book is about dealing with loss and grief (ha! thanks universe!) and there is even the odd baby. Perhaps she was worried I had secretly already read it 🙂

I did also read that she’d had a hard time personally during the writing of this one. Perhaps it has been obvious from her last couple of characters that’s she’s feeling more melancholy. The women have been a little more squashed in character, a little more broken and the themes of the books has been more about ‘picking up and moving on’. This isn’t a bad thing, in fact, at my age and in my circumstances, I think it might even be a good thing, but they’ve made me laugh less. Perhaps I’m not in the mood for laughing so easily.

Chances is about two people shaking off the tendrils of the past and the relationships they’ve been in which have ended for various reasons and taking the risk of starting again. As far as that goes, it is well drawn and actually I think I believed in the character of Oliver, the potential love interest and Tim, ex-rat, most of all. Vita seemed a little passive but that was okay, because she was being passive and her friends and the people around her gave her a metaphorical slap for it. I think we all have times in our life like that. My favourite character of all was Jonty, Oliver’s son and Oliver was enough like Max for me to honestly believe that Jonty really was as nice and well balanced as he was. I liked Jonty, I wanted it to end well for him. It half made me laugh too that two of the characters owned a crafty shop and go to trade shows. Perhaps she’s been reading my blog…. 😉

Chances isn’t the pacey, sexy novels of Freya’s back catalogue but it isn’t less enjoyable for it. It’s believable and it ticked all my boxes of drawing a picture, making me feel I knew the characters and letting me see the village and a snapshot of a life. It was that, a snapshot, a whimsical, fleeting turning point moment for a five people. It didn’t challenge me and at one point I worried most that it wouldn’t have the ending I was expecting. I liked them all and wanted it to end well for them. For that, if not for a ripping yarn I sighed in satisfaction at the end of, I liked Chances well enough.

I’d like some sassy, sexy characters back now though. I really hope the tough time is past for her and the sparkle flickers back into her next heroines; I always love them, they always feel like friends and I want to keep meeting new people from her imagination.