This is another winner from Sarah Challis.
Alice is approaching 60, she has been married for nearly 40 years. Her husband is newly retired and she wants a party. She has never made a fuss in all her life but this time she is determined. She wants a marquee with a pale pink lining,( it flatters an older skin apparently) - she wants caterers and above all she wants to lose weight and have all her family around her.There is much to empathise with here, no matter what your age, as we follow Alice, her husband, their four children their various partners and children through the ups and downs that lead to the great event. ( the high powered business woman daughter, the born again teacher and his dissatisfied and guilt ridden wife, the hopelessly romantic hippy daughter, and of course the all round good egg of a son with step daughters, oh and a tempted husband!) I just couldn't put it down and ended up reading it in a day. I also love books set in Dorset!
It would make an excellent holiday read.
Here is another novel partially based in Dorset. This book was selected for The TV Book Club 2011. I have to say having watched the programme they were rather sniffy over this book, but my advice is ignore this media snobbery and indulge in this book. I loved it! This book is a rights of passage novel for women. It is 1894 and young wealthy American Cora Cash comes to England to marry a title, shoved by her ambitious mother. There she enters a world of duplicity and rules that she does not understand. Yes, it is fundamentally a romance but there is so much more in this. It would make an interesting book group title, the contrast between the two worlds, the aristocrats of the US have money in the UK they have breeding. Cora's maid is black. In the Us she has restrictions imposed on her, in England there is no prejudice and she can openly have a relationship with a white manservant. She has a freedom within the constraints of her class that she could only dream about in the US. This would also make an excellent holiday read, ( four days off at Easter!) easy to read and carries you along at a great pace.
Alice is approaching 60, she has been married for nearly 40 years. Her husband is newly retired and she wants a party. She has never made a fuss in all her life but this time she is determined. She wants a marquee with a pale pink lining,( it flatters an older skin apparently) - she wants caterers and above all she wants to lose weight and have all her family around her.
