Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering

                                                      

Ebook:  269 pages

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Romantic Fiction, Humorous Fiction, 

Publisher:  Boldwood Books 17th February 2025

Source:  NetGalley

First Sentences: 'Are you sure this is right? Only this is Lady Dawe's place and she is bonkers'

Review Quote: ‘A unique, well-written story that is uplifting, emotional, and humorous—well worth reading.’ Reader Review. 

My Opinion:  

I have read several of this author's books in the past, but it was a long time ago 2011/2012. Somehow I have missed out on her more recent publications until now. 

'Happily Ever After' has a dreamy heroine, Andromeda who believes that real life is like the books she read during her unconventional upbringing. While cataloguing the vast neglected library in an old and crumbling mansion, she soon learns that real life is somewhat less predictable.

The setting and the characters are all well developed with the story having twists and turns to hold the readers interest. Clever touch is each chapter having a literary reference as a title heading. If you enjoy contemporary fiction with a touch of romance and humour this is a very readable example of the genre. 

With thanks to NetGalley, Boldwood Books and Jane Lovering for the opportunity to read and review. 

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

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. Bumps in the night, a missing heir, ghostly apparitions and secrets that have been kept for generations - the mysteries mount up. Then there's the inscrutable gardener who seems to appear when needed - is Andi right to hope for a happily-ever-after end to her story?

Author Profile:         

                                           

                                            Photo and Profile Courtesy of Amazon

WINNER - CONTEMPORARY ROMANTIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2023 with A COTTAGE FULL OF SECRETS (Boldwood Books) ROMANTIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2012 with PLEASE DON'T STOP THE MUSIC (Choc Lit publishing), RoNA ROSE (NOVELLA OF THE YEAR) 2018 with CHRISTMAS AT THE LITTLE VILLAGE SCHOOL AND FANTASY ROMANTIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2019 with LIVING IN THE PAST

Jane was, presumably, born, although everyone concerned denies all knowledge. However there is evidence that her early years were spent in Devon (she can still talk like a pirate under the right conditions) and of her subsequent removal to Yorkshire under a sack and sedation.

She now lives in North Yorkshire, where she writes women's fiction novels with funny bits and labours under the tragic misapprehension that men are queueing up for her. She owns possibly the world's worst dog, a Patterdale Terrier who answers to - well, who knows, since she rarely comes back; she is also the owner of five practically grown-up children, and she has to spend considerable amounts of time in a darkened room as a result (of the dog, not the kids).

Photographs, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Jane Lovering - Facebook Profile.   Twitter Profile   Amazon Book Page

Flappy Entertains by Santa Montefiore

Paperback: 242 pages

Genre: Contemporary Fiction 

Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2021

Source:  Tywyn Public Library

First Sentences: Flappy Scott-Booth, the self-styled queen of the small but not insignificant Devon town of Badley Compton, sat on the high-backed Russian imperial chair she'd bought at auction from Christie's and scrutinized the fresh face of the young woman sitting formally and a little nervously, on the other side of the walnut desk.

Review Quote: 'Packed with wickedly funny insights and throwaway lines and written with an extra-large helping of heart, this is the perfect escape for anyone in need of of a book hug!' Lancashire Post

My Opinion: Humorous fiction is a new direction for Santa Montefiore to take her writing. She has written this novel, especially for the character of Flappy Scott-Booth who originally appeared in 'The Temptation of Gracie'. She had so many emails about her at that time. This influenced her decision to expand her role and feature her as protagonist in a series of novels, of which 'Flappy Entertains' is the first.

For me personally it was an amusing, very light hearted and a quick read. A little far fetched and incredibly lightweight compared to her other novels which have much more substance to them. Disappointing and I think only really dedicated fans of her writing will enjoy this series. Sorry not for me, but I am sure I will continue to enjoy her writing. Just not this particular series.

My reviews of other novels by Santa Montefiore:  Secrets of the Lighthouse 

 The Swallow and the Hummingbird  The Summer House  The House by the Sea

The French Gardener  The Beekeeper's Daughter  Here and Now

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

Flappy Scott-Booth is the self-appointed queen bee of Badley Compton, a picturesque Devon village. While her husband Kenneth spends his days on the golf course, she is busy overseeing her beautiful house and gardens, and organising unforgettable events, surrounded by friends who hang on to her every word.
 
Her life is a reflection of herself – impossibly perfect.
 
Until the day that Hedda Harvey-Smith and her husband Charles move into the village. Into an even grander home than hers. Taking the front seat on the social scene, quite literally.
 
That simply will not do.
 
Flappy is determined to show Hedda how things are done here in Badley Compton. But then she looks into Charles’s beautiful green eyes. And suddenly, her focus is elsewhere. She is only human, after all…

Author Profile:         

Courtesy of Goodreads

Born in England in February 1970 Santa Montefiore grew up on a farm in Hampshire and was educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University and spent much of the 90s in Buenos Aires, where her mother grew up. She converted to Judaism in 1998 and married historian Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha in London.

The following Biography, in her own words is Courtesy of  Santa Montefiore Official Website

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a writer. I dabbled in books throughout my youth, from children’s stories to rather naïve love stories as I got older. From the age of 12 I went to Sherborne School for Girls, which was a boarding school. There I excelled in English, which was lucky because I certainly didn’t excel at much else except for sport and music! I wrote stories for my friends, imagining romances between them and the spotty youths they fancied at Sherborne Boys’ School. I transformed them into Rhett Butlers and set them in humid, mosquito infested jungles, which I considered extremely romantic, having never been in one. This seemed to satisfy them and I was in great demand to write more. Fancying myself a bit of a novelist, especially after a writer friend of my mother’s read one and suggested I send it to a publisher, I attempted a novel. With little experience of love and life it wasn’t a surprise when it was rejected. The trouble was I hadn’t yet found a good story. That came later, when I went to live in Argentina.

I was 19. My Anglo Argentine mother arranged for me to work on an estancia on the Argentine Pampa for a year, teaching English to three young children. This turned out to be one of the best things my parents ever did for me for I fell in love. Not with a polo playing Argentine, although I did have an innocent flirtation, but with the country. I lost my heart to those flat, humid plains and still, after 5 books, I have not managed to retrieve it. You see, Argentina is intoxicating. The countryside is rich with the scents of eucalyptus and gardenia, the sound of horses snorting in the fields or thundering up the polo pitch, birdsong and crickets resounding across the park. The houses, colonial in style, are painted white and yellow with dark green shutters to keep out the stifling summer heat, and surrounded by brightly coloured flowers and red tiled terraces upon which one can sit and stare out for miles over that vast plain. It is difficult to see where the sky begins and the earth ends, the horizon is simply mist. One feels very small. I spent a lot of time on a pony, riding to the neighbouring estancia for tea with friends, cutting across the plain, through the long grasses alive with prairie hares. Little by little I began to feel that I was a part of the place.

Buenos Aires is a city heavy with the sense of nostalgia. When the immigrants arrived from all over Europe, lured by the promise of rich pickings and new lives at the end of the 19th century, they recreated in the architecture echoes of their own homelands to stave off the inevitable homesickness. Thus, the Colón theatre is reminiscent of the Scala in Milan, the plazas of Madrid, the tall roofed buildings of Paris, the palm tree lined avenues of the South of France. Cafés spill out onto pavements where the waiters are all over sixty and one can sit in the shade and listen to the melancholy notes of the tango wafting on the breeze, thick with the scent of jasmine and diesel.

I left Argentina after a year, having belonged. The following year I returned during my university holiday to find, to my dismay, that I no longer fitted in. The young people I had hung out with had either gone to the US to study or had boyfriends or girlfriends and didn’t go down to the farm so much anymore, preferring to be in the city. I didn’t have a job, I was a tourist. I had nothing to get me up in the morning and the friends I had made in shops and cafés in the streets where I lived had moved on. I felt a sharp sense of alienation as if I was watching it all through a pane of glass where the year before I had been on the other side. It was a difficult time and I cried all the way home on the plane. However, I didn’t realise it then but I had my story.

We have all had moments that we would give anything to live again. However much we try, time cannot be reversed. It changes us and those we were once close to. My first novel, published in 2001, 12 years after my first trip to Argentina, was a wander down memory lane for me and hence very cathartic. I was able to channel all my feelings of nostalgia, regret and longing into a novel that seems to have struck a chord with many people. I get wonderful letters. I am grateful for every single one and thrilled that through that book I have managed to give people something special.   

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Authors Official Website   Instagram   Facebook Page  Goodreads Author Profile  

Amazon Author Page

The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year by Sue Townsend

Hardback: 437 pages
Genre: Humorous fiction
Publisher: Michael Joseph 2012
Source: Tywyn Public Library
Extract from first pages: She picked up the saucepan, walked from the kitchen into the sitting room and threw the soup all over the precious chair. She then went upstairs, into her bedroom and without removing her clothes or her shoes, got into bed and stayed there for a year.
Favourite Quote: “To unlock the heavy outer door and to walk into the hushed interior, with the morning light spilling from the high windows on to the waiting books, gave her such pleasure that she would have worked for nothing.” 
Review Quote:  'Laugh-out-loud . . . a teeming world of characters whose foibles and misunderstandings provide glorious amusement. Something deeper and darker than comedy' Sunday Times
My Opinion: Satirical read

 Sue Townsend's name  will always be synonymous with the Adrian Mole stories, they are what have most helped make her Britain's favourite comic author today.  Her other books I have enjoyed but there has never been another character as memorable as Adrian Mole.

There is no doubt that The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year is very well written, a satirical read,  funny and sad there is something terribly dark about this latest novel from Sue Townsend. When I first picked it up and read the blurb I thought it had possibilities for a very amusing, entertaining read. At first it was as the protagonist Eva Beaver, a librarian, (yes I know!)decides that she just cannot tolerate her life any more. Before long though I was beginning to find that that this woman and her selfish attitudes just grated on my nerves, spoiling the humour for me. Maybe this is what the author intended but one cannot be sure, certainly the picture she paints of the rest of the family makes you sympathetic of Eva's feelings. Just do not think she did herself any favours in the way she responded to her annoying family, surely languishing in bed was just not the answer.

As you can probably tell there was nothing compelling for me about this novel, but I plodded through and if you are a fan of Sue Townsend's writing then you should definitely add this to your reading list. However if you have never read any of her novels I personally do not think this is a good one to start with.


Author Profile

Susan Lillian Townsend was born April 2nd 1946 in Leicester, where she spent her childhood free time playing in local fields and woods. She only learned to read at the age of eight when, off school with mumps, she was given by her mother a pile of Just William books and taught to read in just three weeks. From that moment she became obsessed with reading. Later, she started to write for the school magazine.

Sue left school at fifteen with no qualifications and found employment in a string of unfulfilling jobs, from petrol-pump attendant to shop assistant. She kept writing, but did so in secret. At eighteen she married and a year later her first child was born. With two more children in her family and a subsequent divorce, she at last found a job she enjoyed – at the youth club on the estate she lives in.

In 1978 Sue met Colin Broadway and after she admitted to him that she had been writing secretly for years he encouraged her to join a writer’s group at Leicester’s Phoenix Arts Centre. After the third meeting, where Sue had shown nothing nor said anything, she was told to share some work with the group next week. Two weeks later she presented Womberang , a play set in a gynaecological waiting room. The play was put on and in 1979 won a Thames Television Playwright Award, including a bursary as Writer in Residence.

Having, almost by accident, embarked on a professional writing career, Sue went on to write numerous successful plays, including Bazaar and Rummage (1982) and The Great Celestial Cow (1984), both of which were performed at London’s Royal Court Theatre.

But it was the Adrian Mole diaries, which Sue had started in 1975, writing the first two and a half months in one sitting, that brought her lasting fame. These first appeared as a half-hour piece on Radio Four in 1982 as The Diary of Nigel Mole. Later that year, the publishers Methuen brought out The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 ¾ (1982) and later its sequel, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole(1984). Together these books made Sue the best selling author of the 1980's. There have been six further books in the Adrian Mole series , which have sold over eight million copies and have been adapted for radio, television and theatre.

In 1991 she was awarded an Honorary MA by the University of Leicester and subsequently has placed her papers in their Special Collections archives. Sue has continued to write other books, many of which have also gone on to be best sellers, including The Queen and I (1992) and Number 10 (2002). Her latest novel is The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year, published in 2012 by Michael Joseph.

She has suffered from diabetes for many years, as a result of which she was registered blind in 2001, and has woven this theme into her work.

The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the following websites, where you can also find more information about the author and her writing.

  
Amazon Author Page - Sue Townsend    Goodreads Author Profile   Authors Official Website

Linking up today with Literary Friday

Various Pets Alive and Dead by Marina Lewycka

                                         

              

Paperback : 366 pages 
Genre: Literary Humurous Fiction 
Publisher: Penguin 2012
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentences: 'The world world is deranged, though most people haven't noticed yet.'
Review Quote: 'Wonderfully funny . . . a dizzy, eye-watering treat . . . Lewycka is somewhere between Hilary Mantel in her satirical mode and Sue Townsend' Independent
My Opinion:  Deftly combines serious issues with her talent for the humorous.


Monica Lewycka's fourth novel is written in that same distinctive style that has become her trademark and once again deftly combines serious issues with her talent for the humorous. In this novel her theme is the opposing lifestyle of hippie free thinking parents in comparison to the capitalist lifestyle of one of their children.

The protagonists are Doro and Marcus retired teachers who lived in a commune from the late 60's to the early 90's and brought up their children to embrace the free love and relaxed living. The three siblings Serge, Clara and Oolie Anna have not turned out quite as expected though. Serge is  not studying at Cambridge for a Phd as they think, but living the capitalist lifestyle that they so oppose.  Clara has followed in their footsteps in that she has become a teacher but she has a passion for cleanliness and tidiness, whilst the youngest daughter who has Downs Syndrome is keen to be allowed to lead an independent life.

In her unique style of combining the farcical with ordinary life she has cleverly used the numerous animals that feature to give this novel a very witty title.

I recommend the work of this author and if you have enjoyed her previous novels will be surprised if you do not enjoy this one.

Marina Lewycka - Various Pets Alive and Dead   Link to video of the author reading an extract

Links to my reviews of Marina Lewycka's earlier novels.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Two Caravans  published as Strawberry Fields in North America.
We Are All Made of Glue

Author Profile

Marina Lewycka is of Ukrainian origin and was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany in 1946 shortly after World War II ended. Her family subsequently moved to England when she was about a year old, she now lives in Sheffield, Yorkshire. She graduated from Keele University in 1968 with BA in English and Philosophy and from the University of York with a BPhil in English Literature in 1969. She began, but did not complete, a PhD at King's College London. She was a lecturer in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University until her retirement in March 2012. Having spent much of her life trying to become a writer she finally succeeded in 2005 with A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian which has sold more than a million copies in the UK alone. This was followed by Two Caravans in March 2007, We Are All Made of Glue in July 2009 and Various Pets Alive and Dead last year. I have included this link to  the personal biography on her website as it makes delightful reading.  Marina Lewycka Biography.

Photo,Biographical and Video Information is with thanks to the following sites where you can also find out more about the author and her writing. 

Wikipedia - Marina Lewycka    Author's Official Website   You Tube Video

The Last Family in England by Matt Haig

Paperback: 341 pages
Genre: Humorous Fiction
Publisher: Vintage 2005
Source: I have no idea but I selected it from my bookshelves to fulfil the letter L in the A - Z Title Challenge
First Sentence: 'Dogs like to talk'
Favourite Quote: ' I now realise that there is a fundamental difference between us and humans and it is a difference which highlights why they need our help. the difference is this: whereas dogs can learn to suppress their instincts, for humans there is no hope.'
Review Quote: 'A comic tour de force.....A desperately sad view from underneath as a family falls apart' The Times.Note:  This title is published as ' The Labrador Pact' in the USA. 
My Opinion:   Written as humorous fiction I did actually find it rather sad. 

It took me a long time to get into this and I nearly gave up. My husband said I should continue and he was right!  I liked it in the end and was glad I persevered but it is not going to stand out as a favourite read for this year, guess that is probably why it sat so long on our bookshelves before I selected it for the Letter L in the A - Z Title Challenge.


I am an animal lover but I definitely prefer cats to dogs so I did not find it easy to empathise with the narrator of the story ' Prince' who just happens to be a Labrador Retriever.  Prince feels responsible for his human family and he cares for them under the rules of ' The Labrador Pact' as he struggles to save the family from being broken up by outside influences. 


The Shakespeare quotes before the novel starts, within plus characters names led me to recognise that  the author is using some of the situations from the History Plays Hamlet and Henry IV.  Although to be honest I never really understood the reasoning beyond showing us that Prince in his efforts to save his family will put his own life under threat.


Written as humorous fiction I did actually find it rather sad.  The issues covered are serious ones, love, commitment to our families and dealt with in a way that I found difficult to relate to.  Matt Haig's  style of humour may not appeal to me in this novel, very much although I did laugh.  His writing is without a doubt very clever and it is definitely worth reading for that reason alone.


Author Profile

Matt Haig was born in 1975 in Sheffield, and grew up in Newark, Nottinghamshire. Since then he has lived in Nottingham, Ibiza and London.  He studied  English and History at Hull , then Leeds Universities, for his MA.   After running his own internet marketing company and working for a nightclub in Spain, he became a full-time writer. He writes for various national newspapers, including The Guardian and The Independent. and in 2009 won the Yorkshire Young Achievers 'Achievement in the Arts' Award. He now lives  in York with his wife the writer Andrea Semple and their children Lucas and Pearl.


The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the following websites where you can also learn more about the author and his writing.


Goodreads - Author Profile    Matt Haig - Author Official Website  
Matt Haig - Wikipedia    Matt Haig - Facebook     


I have chosen to read this title as the letter L for The A - Z Book Challenge which I have decided to attempt to achieve in alphabetical order. I have a good selection of titles to choose from our bookshelves, it will be interesting to see how far I can get before I get stuck. You can follow my progress here.