Newest Women's Fiction Reviews
Women's Fiction
An Enormously English Monsoon Wedding by Christina Jones
Jay loves Erin and Erin loves Jay. They live in a picture perfect village called Nook Green and are planning their dream wedding, which is only a few weeks away. The plans are coming along perfectly and everything is running according to schedule. Life simply couldn’t get any better than this. Full review...
Lifesaving for Beginners by Ciara Geraghty
A fatal car crash links Kat and Milo, two people who otherwise might never have met. After all, they live in different countries, and she’s old enough to be his mother. He likes lifesaving classes and the banana muffins in his mother’s café, while she lives off cigarettes and wine, and writes for a living. And yet now, because of the crash, they are linked. They don’t realise it yet, but as time passes their lives will move closer. As secrets are unearthed, they will become bound to one another in different ways. Full review...
Country Loving by Cathy Woodman
When Stevie Dunsford receives a call to tell her that her father’s farm is in danger of going under, she doesn’t have any idea how bad things really are. Her life is in London with her successful career in accountancy and her good looking boyfriend. She plans to go to the farm in Devon for the weekend to sort things out and that will be that. However, when she discovers the state of things, she has no option other to stay and try to make things better even though she and her father have been estranged for years. What she does not expect though, is how readily and happily she fits back into life on the farm and soon her London life and Nick start to lose their attraction. Of course, this new contentment has got nothing to do with her blossoming relationship with the gorgeous local vet, Leo. It’s time to move forward and commit to the farm and Leo. However, just as things are really looking good, Stevie makes an unexpected discovery that threatens to ruin everything. Full review...
The Holiday Home by Fern Britton
Pru and Connie might be sisters but they're as different as chalk and cheese. It's always been like this. Pru is the elder, although not by much and she's a hard-nosed businesswoman who always gets what she wants. Husband Francis was acquired in much the same way that you might employ staff - and that's his function. He looks after Pru and their son Jeremy. Connie, on the other hand, is a homebody - married to Greg (who runs her parents' family business) and mother to Abigail their sixteen-going-on-seventeen year old daughter. There's another difference too. Francis is pure of heart and an honest man, largely unappreciated by his wife, but Greg, although Connie believes differently, is a philandering little sh.. Full review...
Leftovers by Stella Newman
Susie Rosen is what a magazine calls a 'leftover' - she's thirty something and lacks her dream man, job or home. You might think that she has the job of her dreams as she's an account manager in advertising, but she finds it unfulfilling - and that's on the good days. On the bad days she resurrects her plan that she's going to get promoted by Christmas and then quit. Boyfriend Jake cheated on her and although the relationship broke up some time ago she hasn't got over him. Right now life revolves around the job, minimising the effect of some of the more dreadful colleagues and her girlfriends - but some of them are proving to be not quite as reliable as she might have hoped. Full review...
Happy Families by Janey Fraser
Happy families are, contrary to popular belief, not all alike. Bobbie is a working mum of two children who we’ll call ‘spirited’ for want of a better phrase. Her husband works late a lot so she’s the one left trying to juggle running the house with wrangling the children and still fitting in her own job. Andy is dad to two teens who are perfectly behaved, or at least they are during the rare moments he spends at home. His wife Pamela is a goddess, and a Perfect Parent to boot. He’s a very lucky guy. And then there’s Vanessa, who feels her mothering days are behind her until her young grand-daughter comes to stay…and doesn’t leave. Full review...
Dear Thing by Julie Cohen
Everyone hopes for the happily ever after, and Claire and Ben expected that once they were married, once they had the house with a garden big enough for a swing, that the babies would naturally follow afterwards. So what happens when the babies don't? How long do you try to get pregnant? How long do you endure IVF? At what point do you say enough is enough, and let go of the dream? And what if, at that moment of feeling you simply cannot take any more, your best friend offered to be a surrogate mother, and carry your baby? Full review...
The Antenatal Group by Amy Bratley
Five women are all looking forward to meeting their new babies in a few weeks time. Part of their preparations involve joining the local antenatal group where they get to meet each other. Little do they realise, when they turn up for their first session, how much they are going to come to rely on and care for each other. This book is partly a testament to all those lasting friendships that are formed in groups just like this all over the country. Full review...
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan
Anna has been working as a supervisor and taster at a chocolate factory. She’s 30, never much cared about school, and recently split with her boyfriend. Life isn’t particularly exciting, but she’s reasonably content with her lot. Then a freak accident at work, followed by a nasty infection in hospital leaves her unemployed, apathetic and with no idea what her future holds. Full review...
Good Husband Material by Trisha Ashley
Fergal is part of a popular pop band. Regularly in the news for various scandals, he is introduced in the prologue to this novel when he recalls his first, somewhat dramatic meeting with 17-year-old Tish, and the year-long romance which followed. Full review...
The Art of Leaving by Anna Stothard
Luke's a barrister and Eva? She's a romantic novel editor and habitual leaver. Be it a party or a man, she's working on the exit strategy from the moment everything starts. This makes the fact that Eva and Luke have been together for three years a little abnormal in Eva world. The other abnormality in Eva world is the blonde woman she keeps spotting in random places, almost as if she's being spied upon… Full review...
Losing It by Cora Carmack
Bliss is a drama student, but what else would you expect with a name like that? And yet, when we first meet her, I would never have guessed that was her major. She just doesn’t seem the type. She’s also not the type to pick up random men in bars, but that’s exactly what she does as the book starts. It’s her friend Kelsey’s fault. She’s determined to get Bliss out there, because that’s not where Bliss normally is. About to graduate at the end of the year, Bliss has made it through college without one key college experience: sex. And it’s time to change that. Full review...
Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé by Joanne Harris
It’s over seven years since I read Chocolat, set in a small French town called Lansquenet. I liked it, on the whole, and often wondered what happened to Vianne, the chocolate-making and rather mystical heroine, not to mention the people whose lives she affected so deeply. A couple of years later I read The Lollipop Shoes which purported to be a sequel, but really stood alone. It was set in Paris and rather different in style. I liked it, but somehow it did not feel as if it involved the same people. Full review...
The Adoption by Anne Berry
It is a sad fact that only a few decades ago, the forced removal of an infant from its unmarried mother was widely considered the best option for all concerned. It is hard to imagine the terrible trauma suffered by these women when the authorities intervened and took away that tiny bundle, destined for a new life with new parents. Full review...
Mums Like Us by Laura Kemp
Stella Smith is fed up with the expectation that mums should be superwomen. She feels that there are certain women, who appear to have achieved perfection in terms of motherhood, that make all other mums feel inept and inferior. She feels that realism is best and that to strive to be 'good enough' is what most mums should aspire to. That is why she sets up the 'Mums Like Us' group that meets weekly in her messy kitchen and rejoices in slovenliness, messy clothes and overeating. Full review...
A French Affair by Katie Fforde
Gina Makepiece has just moved to the Cotswolds to live near her sister Sally. They are intrigued when they discover that their dear Aunt Rainey has left them something in her will. In order to find out what though, they have to go to the French House, an antiques centre, where the owner, Matthew, has a letter from their aunt to open. It transpires that they have been left a stall in the centre and their aunt has requested that Matthew helps them get to grips with the world of antiques. Full review...
The Last Time I Saw You by Eleanor Moran
As a woman in her mid thirties, Livvy feels that her life is OK. She has a good job even though she is slightly intimidated by her boss and is often in danger of being overlooked for new projects. Her love life might be non-existent but at least she shares her home with James, the one time love of her life which only works if she can settle for being good mates. However, when she hears that Sally, her best friend from many years ago, has been killed in a car accident, her world is turned upside down. Full review...
The Mummyfesto by Linda Green
Three women, who meet regularly in the school playground, have become close friends. Sam has two sons: the sensitive, old-for-his years Zach, who is seven, and the fun-loving five-year-old Oscar. Anna has two teenagers, Will and Charlotte, and a younger daughter called Esme. Jackie just has Alice. Oscar, Esme and Alice are classmates, and good friends; sadly, Oscar suffers from an incurable muscle-wasting disease, and can only move in a wheelchair. Sam and her partner Rob have to use ventilators and other machines just to keep him alive, knowing that any infection could be seriously life-threatening. Full review...
Gossip by Beth Gutcheon
Loviah French, Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf met when they were at boarding school. Lovie owns a top-class dress shop in Manhattan - the place where women of a certain class go when they want something for a special occasion and to be secure in the knowledge that they will be treated well and discreetly. Dinah is a columnist who chronicles the lives of New York's rich and famous, whilst Avis is a prominent figure in the art world. Lovie is our narrator and she's also the glue which holds the three women together. They're both devoted to her and she to them, but a small, imagined slight, many decades earlier, has left an icy distance between Dinah and Avis. Full review...
The Baby Diaries by Sam Binnie
Hot on the heels of the Wedding Diaries, Kiki and Thom are back with the next installment of their lives. It’s not giving too much away, given the title, to tell you that there’s a baby on the way. It was sorta, kinda not all that planned, but they’re happy if a little shocked. Luckily she’s got her sister to guide her through the process, numerous friends who are newly married, newly pregnant or newly parents themselves, and her own mother who seems to be almost nice for once. Full review...
Unexpected Lessons in Love by Bernardine Bishop
Cecilia Banks and Helen Gatehouse met by chance in a doctor's waiting room and a friendship developed because they were both cancer survivors, albeit with a colostomy. It was a case of opposites attracting: Cecilia was quiet, reserved, married for the second time and the mother of Ian whom she idolised. Helen had never married, loud in the nicest sense of the word and an author. They gave each other mutual support and an outlet for their preoccupations. People with whom you can discuss the, er, intricacies of your stoma are few and far between! The relationship wasn't entirely uncritical: Helen was less than impressed when Ian dumped (sorry - there's really no other word for it) a baby on his mother. Cephas was the result of a fling he'd had with the child's mother and she'd disappeared. He - a war correspondent - was on his way abroad. Full review...
Pedigree Mum by Fiona Gibson
When Kerry Tambini moves to Shorling, she has high expectations that she and her family will live there happily forever. Within weeks though, her dreams are shattered after her husband Rob shocks her by an indiscretion that he can hardly remember. This indiscretion turns out to have a devastating consequence leaving Kerry with no option but to ask Rob to move out. This leaves her alone with the children in Shorling and pretty much friendless as she struggles to find anything in common with the snooty mums she meets at the school gate. Full review...
Transforming Pandora by Carolyn Mathews
When we first meet Pandora Armstrong in the spring of 2003 she's grieving for her husband, Mike, who had died just a few weeks before. It hadn't been his first heart attack and he had reduced his workload but this attack was fatal. He was only in his fifties and Pandora feels that he'd been snatched away from her as they'd only been married for a few years. When a friend suggests that she goes with her to an Evening of Clairvoyance she runs out of excuses to refuse and although she's not exactly convinced by what she hears there's a lingering doubt. A spirit voice mentioned her children and Pandora was adamant that she didn't have any children - it's actually quite a sore point - but that wasn't true of Mike. Full review...
A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger by Lucy Robinson
Charley is a have-it-all alpha-female. She takes cooking lessons, learns Mandarin, volunteers her time to worthy causes. But she’s not a lady who lunches, trying to fill her days, she’s a high-flying communications manager at a Pharma company who dreams big and works relentlessly to achieve her goals. So, when she’s side-lined by a nasty accident that leaves her leg broken in 3 places, she panics. Not for her are months off sick, lounging on the sofa watching Jeremy Kyle and eating Thorntons straight from the box. She can’t return to work, so she needs a new plan, something to occupy her time and stop her brain going to mush. Full review...
