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When the only place you want to be is home.... When Ella's beloved grandmother dies, she comes back to the beautiful Cornish coast to heal her heart. There she finds her home again and discovers a new life and new love...but she also opens a treasure trove of secrets.
Rachel has always loved being at the centre of her large family. She has fiercely devoted herself to her three sons all their lives, and continues to do so even now they are all grown up. They are, of course, devoted to her – she and Anthony, their father, hold the family together at their big, beautiful, ramshackle house near the wide, bird-haunted coast of Suffolk. But when Luke, her youngest, gets married, Rachel finds that control is slipping away.
Ginger isn't spending her 30th the way she would have planned. Tonight might be the first night of the rest of her life - or a total disaster. Sam is finally pregnant after years of trying. When her waters break on the morning of her 40th birthday, she panics: forget labour, how is she going to be a mother? Callie is celebrating her 50th at a big party in her Dublin home. Then a knock at the door midparty changes everything....
Lifelong friends, now in their sixties, James, a teacher, and Hugh, a TV personality, both live with attractive women 25 years their junior. But the age difference is a time bomb, ticking away at the heart of both relationships. Kate's hunger for a life more in keeping with her own age threatens to bring her eight years with James to an end. And how is Julia to cope when her own career begins to blossom while Hugh's is withering before their eyes? The arrival of Miss Beatrice Bachelor, a razor-sharp Oxford spinster, fuels the discontent in both girls.
The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or, at least, the only life she'd ever known. For who was she if not a City high-flyer, Senior Partner at one of the top private equity firms in London? As Stacey starts to reconcile her old life with the new - one without professional achievements or meetings but instead long days at home with her dog and ailing mother, waiting for her successful husband to come home - she at least has The Girls to fall back on. Beth, Melissa and Gaby.
Gina and Laurence had been the best of friends ever since they were teenagers. They had never been in love - just friends.
Now, Gina is married to the exquisitely tasteful Fergus and lives in stylish perfection at High Place. Laurence is married to down-to-earth Hilary and they have spent their married life turning The Bee House into both home and hotel. Then, with elegant disdain, Fergus announces he is leaving Gina and their teenage daughter. As Gina's misery ricochets through the two homes, she turns for emotional support to Laurence, her dearest friend....
When the only place you want to be is home.... When Ella's beloved grandmother dies, she comes back to the beautiful Cornish coast to heal her heart. There she finds her home again and discovers a new life and new love...but she also opens a treasure trove of secrets.
Rachel has always loved being at the centre of her large family. She has fiercely devoted herself to her three sons all their lives, and continues to do so even now they are all grown up. They are, of course, devoted to her – she and Anthony, their father, hold the family together at their big, beautiful, ramshackle house near the wide, bird-haunted coast of Suffolk. But when Luke, her youngest, gets married, Rachel finds that control is slipping away.
Ginger isn't spending her 30th the way she would have planned. Tonight might be the first night of the rest of her life - or a total disaster. Sam is finally pregnant after years of trying. When her waters break on the morning of her 40th birthday, she panics: forget labour, how is she going to be a mother? Callie is celebrating her 50th at a big party in her Dublin home. Then a knock at the door midparty changes everything....
Lifelong friends, now in their sixties, James, a teacher, and Hugh, a TV personality, both live with attractive women 25 years their junior. But the age difference is a time bomb, ticking away at the heart of both relationships. Kate's hunger for a life more in keeping with her own age threatens to bring her eight years with James to an end. And how is Julia to cope when her own career begins to blossom while Hugh's is withering before their eyes? The arrival of Miss Beatrice Bachelor, a razor-sharp Oxford spinster, fuels the discontent in both girls.
The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or, at least, the only life she'd ever known. For who was she if not a City high-flyer, Senior Partner at one of the top private equity firms in London? As Stacey starts to reconcile her old life with the new - one without professional achievements or meetings but instead long days at home with her dog and ailing mother, waiting for her successful husband to come home - she at least has The Girls to fall back on. Beth, Melissa and Gaby.
Gina and Laurence had been the best of friends ever since they were teenagers. They had never been in love - just friends.
Now, Gina is married to the exquisitely tasteful Fergus and lives in stylish perfection at High Place. Laurence is married to down-to-earth Hilary and they have spent their married life turning The Bee House into both home and hotel. Then, with elegant disdain, Fergus announces he is leaving Gina and their teenage daughter. As Gina's misery ricochets through the two homes, she turns for emotional support to Laurence, her dearest friend....
Flora and Rose are identical twins who do not know of each other's existence. Rose has been raised by her frivolous mother with the glossy international jet set. Flora has spent her childhood in the beauty and quiet of her father's Cornish cottage. And then, by chance, they meet. The encounter seems heaven-sent to Rose, who longs to escape from a man she no longer desires. Flora can free her, and, in taking her sister's place, her uneventful life is changed forever.
Laura, newly married and ever conscious she may be living in the shadow of her husband Alec's first wife, decides to take a holiday with his family in Cornwall. Through the long hot summer days, she is slowly charmed by the beautiful old house and the people she learns to know and love. In time her uneasy spirit is soothed by the sparkling, brilliant sea, and her restless heart finally calmed.
Summer 1939: After touring an unsettled Europe to promote her latest book, Romily Temple returns home to Island House and the love of her life, Jack Devereux. But when Jack falls ill, his estranged family are called to his bedside. With war now declared, each member of the family is reluctantly forced to accept their new stepmother and confront their own shortcomings. But can Romily cope with the life that has been so unexpectedly thrust upon her?
Merrion Palmer has been Judge Guy Stockdale's mistress for the last seven years and his wife and two grown-up sons know absolutely nothing about her. Up until now, Guy and Merrion have enjoyed a blissfully, uncomplicated relationship in stolen moments in Merrion's flat, and to the rest of the world, Guy has played the part of model husband, father and grandfather. But now the time has come for things to change.
A gripping novel full of shocking reveals, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Amanda Prowse and Kerry Fisher. The small suburb of Pleasant Court lives up to its name. It's the kind of place where everyone knows their neighbours, and children play in the street. Isabelle Heatherington doesn't fit into this picture of family paradise. Husbandless and childless, she soon captures the attention of three Pleasant Court mothers. But Ange, Fran and Essie have their own secrets to hide.
Artist's daughter Penelope Keeling can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children - and learned to accept them as they are. Yet she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old age.
A new home, a new circle of friends, a new chance at happiness? Suzanna and Barney Blake are swapping city life for the countryside, determined to breathe new life into the Honeycote Arms and a marriage touched by tragedy. Recently separated Ginny Tait is also seeking solace in country living, desperate to rein in her rambunctious twin daughters. They all think that moving to a calm, quiet and beautiful village in the Cotswolds will solve their problems. But in Honeycote, things are never quite as they appear....
Archie Logan, a country doctor, and his wife Liza lead an orthodox-seeming life, and everything is well until Archie's father, a widower for over 30 years, falls in love. His choice, a woman of powerful charm, has a profound effect on all the Logans, adults and children alike. The house and family turn from being a refuge to being a cage. Archie and Liza risk losing everything they have built.
It's always the husband...unless it's the best friend. Kate, Aubrey and Jenny are inseparable at college - friends who promised they'd always be there for each other. But 20 years later, their friendship is about to take a deadly turn. Kate married the gorgeous party boy, Aubrey married up, and Jenny married the boy next door, but when one of the friends dies in shocking circumstances, will everyone assume that it's always the husband? Or could it be the best friend?
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Faking Friends by Jane Fallon, read by Sally Scott and Kristin Atherton. Best friend. Soulmate. Confidante. Backstabber. Amy thought she knew who Melissa was - then again, Amy also thought she was on the verge of the wedding of her dreams to her long-distance fiancé. When her career begins to unravel, she pays a surprise trip home to London. Her boyfriend Jack is out, but another woman has been making herself at home....
When Kate was 22, she had an intense and passionate affair with a married man, Callum, which ended in heartbreak. Kate thought she'd never get over it. Seventeen years later, life has moved on - Kate, now a successful actress, is living in London, married to Matt and mother to little Tallulah. Meanwhile Callum and his wife, Belinda, are happy together, living in Edinburgh and watching their kids grow up. The past, it would seem, is well and truly behind them all....
A sparkling story about what happens when you let someone into your life...but they turn out to want more than you'd bargained for! Sarah Dee has the perfect life. A high-flying job in a law firm, a beautiful daughter and a house to die for. So how does she find herself looking in through the kitchen window while another woman enjoys it all?
An Unsuitable Match, by number one best-selling author Joanna Trollope, is an uplifting story of love, family and second chances.
Dealing with one's own emotions is one thing. Facing a parent's roller coaster of a love life is quite another....
Rose Woodrowe is getting married to Tyler Masson - a wonderful, sensitive man who is head over heels in love with her. The only problem? This isn't the first time for either of them, and their five grown-up children have strong opinions on the matter....
Who to listen to? Who to please? Rose and Tyler are determined to get it right this time, but in trying to make everyone happy, can they ever be happy themselves?
Rose has been on her own for seven years since her husband left her for another woman. When at the age of 63 she meets the tender, super-loving Tyler, she feels entirely loved for the first time. Tyler adores Rose, to him she’s the most wonderful woman ever. He buys her an amethyst engagement ring and extravagant bouquets of flowers, wants them to buy a cottage in the country, raise hens and live happily ever after. So what’s the problem?
The ‘children’ – all grown up with lives and relationships of their own - are up in arms. “Oh Mum, we’re worried for you, you must see a solicitor, Oh Mum, sell the house? OUR house?? What about the money?” And so it goes on. Trollope is brilliant at emotional nuance and relationships. I find her characters’ endless meals at home, restaurants and coffee bars with their details of wildly expensive ingredients flown in from across the world available only in West London, and the litany of bottles of wine and cocktails served out at any hour which can be afforded only by the wealthy, tedious and irritating. But Rose’s position, excited and truly adored for the only time in her life and so wanting her children just to wish her happiness, is deftly created and subtly developed.
I can’t comment on how the situation unfolds without spoiling the story but enough to say that Trollope’s ability to create the ramifications of family problems caused by a mother who has always dedicated herself to her children’s well-being seizing the chance of happiness, for once just for herself, is masterly.
The voice of Samantha Bond the narrator is a bit too cosy for me, but she’s excellent at making the dialogue – of which there’s a great deal – totally realistic and absorbing.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Probably not, I found the story a bit depressing. I liked the narration though, Samantha Bond is the best part of it.
Has An Unsuitable Match put you off other books in this genre?
No
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
Usually an incisive writer I didn't find a single character, or the way they behaved, likeable. The characters were entitled and behaved in a predictable way.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful