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[[Category:Women's Fiction|*]]
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===[[An Italian Summer by Fanny Blake]]===
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
 
Set against the backdrop of Rome and Naples, ten very different people meet on a small 'Taste of Italy' sightseeing trip. This is a story of family, friendships and relationships – my favourite. However, it was a departure from the usual formulaic chicklit I normally read focused on sassy independent female characters in their twenties or thirties. Here the characters are middle-aged with children in their twenties and rather than looking for love they are facing different life challenges of maintaining love, empty nest syndrome, and the loss of loved ones. Essentially it is a story of breaking out and new beginnings. [[An Italian Summer by Fanny Blake|Full Review]]
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Rebecca Chance's much anticipated and praised latest novel is definitely worth a 'chance' but for me it was a very mixed read. The cover blurb describes it as 'irresistibly readable' and 'a glittering page-turner' which it most certainly was, starting with a famed but as yet unidentified woman on a revengeful warpath against a second glamorous mystery woman. The story then restarts from the beginning setting the scene, characters and events that will eventually lead up to the revengeful opening act. It's not until the end of the book that this mystery betrayal is fully revealed which is what kept me hooked throughout what is quite a long book. [[Coming Home to Cuckoo Cottage by Heidi Swain|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Madame Bovary of the Suburbs by Sophie Divry and Alison Anderson (translator)]]===
 
[[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
 
''It starts with becoming a homeowner, then settling in, then reproducing.''
Well, it actually starts a lot before then, with a set of fractured memories of our heroine's childhood – things she recalls her parents and relatives saying both to and about her. It goes through her childhood, and pen letters to a best friend conveying her wishes for her life, those wishes being revised and affirmed by the liberty of university years, those wishes being met with or denied by married life… Someone archly could point out that you should be careful what you wish for, but not even our wise, modern woman could not see the next step after the reproducing – ''standing disappointed in front of the refrigerator''. [[Madame Bovary of the Suburbs by Sophie Divry and Alison Anderson (translator)|Full Review]]
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