The Bookshop Ladies
Faith Hogan
Head of Zeus
This is another novel with the word Bookshop (or Library or Bookseller) in the title. They are presumably intended to entice those who like reading and books, but it is beginning to seem more than a little obvious.
Here, in a dramatic opening, Joy Blackwood makes a startling discovery about her art dealer husband’s past at the moment of his death in Paris. What she had thought was an idyllic marriage, marred only by the lack of children, is tarnished, and she falls into a state of depression. Then, when it comes to reading the will, she discovers he has left a valuable painting to a woman she has never heard of in a small town in Ireland. She heads to Ballycove to deliver the bequest and to try to find out why the woman has inherited it and how it relates to the shattering discovery.
She finds Robyn, who is, with monumental ineptitude, trying to establish a second-hand bookshop while pining for Kian, who is not interested in her in the same way – he merely sees her as an old friend. Joy, who fortuitously has all the PR skills needed to make the shop a roaring success, becomes involved in helping Robyn, hence the Bookshop Ladies. In alternating sections we find out about Robyn’s mother, Fern, who is a successful artist. As we learn about her past, and her difficult present with a cheating husband, the two strands come together and the two bookshop ladies morph into three.
The main problem with the book is that it suffers from a serious overdose of warm fuzzies. Everyone is incredibly, overwhelmingly nice, and even when they have reason to be something else, they get over it pretty quickly and become even nicer. Some of the men are less appealing, but they are sketched so thinly that they hardly register. Coincidences abound, and only at the end is the dramatic tension ratcheted up a little. Even then, we are left with a cosy conclusion of the happily-ever-after kind.
Hogan is a popular author, has several bestsellers to her name and obviously knows what her regular readers want. Her writing is competent, if a little cliched — people shake like a leaf and so on. However, for readers who like some kind of real tension or challenge in their entertainment, there is little here.
‘The Bookshop Ladies’ offers little to readers who like challenge in their entertainment
The Bookshop Ladies
Faith Hogan
Head of Zeus
This is another novel with the word Bookshop (or Library or Bookseller) in the title. They are presumably intended to entice those who like reading and books, but it is beginning to seem more than a little obvious.
Here, in a dramatic opening, Joy Blackwood makes a startling discovery about her art dealer husband’s past at the moment of his death in Paris. What she had thought was an idyllic marriage, marred only by the lack of children, is tarnished, and she falls into a state of depression. Then, when it comes to reading the will, she discovers he has left a valuable painting to a woman she has never heard of in a small town in Ireland. She heads to Ballycove to deliver the bequest and to try to find out why the woman has inherited it and how it relates to the shattering discovery.
She finds Robyn, who is, with monumental ineptitude, trying to establish a second-hand bookshop while pining for Kian, who is not interested in her in the same way – he merely sees her as an old friend. Joy, who fortuitously has all the PR skills needed to make the shop a roaring success, becomes involved in helping Robyn, hence the Bookshop Ladies. In alternating sections we find out about Robyn’s mother, Fern, who is a successful artist. As we learn about her past, and her difficult present with a cheating husband, the two strands come together and the two bookshop ladies morph into three.
The main problem with the book is that it suffers from a serious overdose of warm fuzzies. Everyone is incredibly, overwhelmingly nice, and even when they have reason to be something else, they get over it pretty quickly and become even nicer. Some of the men are less appealing, but they are sketched so thinly that they hardly register. Coincidences abound, and only at the end is the dramatic tension ratcheted up a little. Even then, we are left with a cosy conclusion of the happily-ever-after kind.
Hogan is a popular author, has several bestsellers to her name and obviously knows what her regular readers want. Her writing is competent, if a little cliched — people shake like a leaf and so on. However, for readers who like some kind of real tension or challenge in their entertainment, there is little here.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: