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|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=A top-flight lawyer becomes a housekeeper despite having no domestic skills. It's formulaic chicklitchick lit, but if you want an easy, light-hearted read then you could do worse than to borrow it from the library.
|rating=3
|buy=No
Having said all that, the second half of the book is better than the first. I found the Samantha who realised that she could relax and enjoy herself more believable than the lawyer. I did sense some spark between Samantha and Nathaniel and the portrayal of Samantha's reluctance and indecision about going back to her old life was well done. You could see all of the ending coming a mile away, but it all works out the way that you want it to, so that's no hardship.
Characterisation The characterisation is, well, extreme. No one ever does anything by halves and sometimes they undergo a complete personality change. An avuncular and friendly man turns out to be a villain. The nouveau-riche employers of the housekeeper turn out to have hearts of gold and feather brains. The gardener has hidden depths and an obliging mother. The lawyers get lawyers a bad name.
What redeems this book is the writing style. It's very easy to read. Kinsella has a good ear for dialogue and moves the story along at a steady pace. If you're looking for an undemanding summer holiday read then you could do a lot worse - Barbara Taylor Bradford's [[Emma's Secret]] or indeed any of her later work, springs to mind, but you could do better too. For something with a little more meat and style you could try Julian Fellowes' [[Snobs]], Anthony Capella's [[The Food of Love]] or Maggie O'Farrell's [[After You'd Gone]]. We also have a review of [[Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella|Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella]].
{{amazontext|amazon=0552772747}}

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