Happily Ever After by Jane LoveringMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Two and a half stars.
The blurb:
Andi Glover loves nothing more than a good book.
Any book in fact because when you’re raised by unconventional parents who think school’s for squares, alongside a deeply conventional sister who escapes home as soon as she can, fiction is eminently preferable to reality.
The only problem is that fiction isn’t the best way to learn about the real world. When Andi starts her new live-in job at Templewood Hall for the eccentric Lady Dawe and her enigmatic son Hugo, it’s tempting to think she’s fallen into the pages of one of her favourite gothic novels.
But the plot twists at Templewood Hall are stranger than fiction and it’s not long before Andi questions if she’s living in a romance novel or a whodunnit.
I rarely use the blurb for books - because that's not a review - but in this case I felt it was the only option. This book vaguely reminded me of Northanger Abbey, a naïve young woman with a vivid imagination goes to stay in a stately home and lets it run riot. The trouble is, all of the characters are eccentric, Lady Dawe who is in love with her late father-in-law, her mysterious elder son Jasper who renounced his inheritance, the skittish younger son Hugo, the surly cleaning lady/cook Mrs Compton, and the vaguely threatening gardener. Don't even get me started on the cat ('the Master') who appears to be the only sane creature there. This really is a case of throwing the kitchen sink at a plot with almost every conceivable protected characteristic (if I can put it that way) thrown in. Yes there was some misdirection but also some of it was blindingly obvious to this reader from an early stage.
I've got to say I think I preferred Jane Lovering's earlier novels, I have been underwhelmed by her most recent novels. Maybe I should stop requesting them and accept we have moved in different directions.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Available on Kindle Unlimited.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment