Agony aunt Rose has more than a few thorns digging in her side at present. Her seven-month marriage is in tatters, the bills are mounting up at an alarming rate and to top it off, she's being plagued by a stalker who seems to know rather a lot about the mysterious circumstances of her birth. It's usually Rose who dishes out the advice, but now she must rely on her wacky friends to come up with some solutions.They suggest she advertise for a lodger and at first, geeky accountant Theo seems the perfect choice for the now resolutely single Rose. However, she becomes intrigued by her new housemate's fascination with astronomy and he soon has her starry-eyed. But the path of true love never did run smooth, and the starcross'd lovers face stiff opposition in many forms, including the increasingly deranged stalker who is intent on getting Rose's attention by fair means or foul…
This started out so well. I’ve enjoyed one
or two Wolff romantic novels before and so I was looking forward to this one. At
first, I found myself warming to agony aunt Rose and her eclectic set of
relationships and was eager to know how she would resolve matters with her
soon-to-be ex husband Ed and her new lodger Theo. Not to mention her disabled
neighbour Bev, and her long friendship with the twins (though I found it really
hard to tell the difference between the twins at all).
After a while however, I found myself more
and more willing to put the book down and go and do something else. Anything
else. Because the trouble with this novel is that it has all the ingredients it
needs, but doesn’t know how to blend them together. Plus it outstays its welcome
by quite a long marker, which is another negative. New romantic interest Theo
starts out very well – a warm picture of a blunt but caring Yorkshireman – but somehow
manages to transmute himself to something very close to an emotional bully.
Rose has gone through quite a difficult childhood and doesn’t know who her real
family is, but Theo regularly berates her for not facing up to the truth in
very harsh terms and seems very quick to criticise her at any opportunity, even
immediately after their first romantic night together. Heavens, no wonder Rose
is cross! I’m all for the strong hero, but not when he has absolutely no
emotional common sense whatsoever.
I also lost interest in Rose herself about
three-quarters of the way through the book, when she stops being a normal,
kind-hearted woman and strangely becomes a mouthpiece for every kind of
counselling cliché in the known universe. Honestly, all her ‘coming to terms
with her past’ and ‘moving on’ type talk made my teeth itch. I wanted the old
dippy Rose back – she was far more human. Plus I really hated the way she ended
up treating her ex-husband, and accusing him of turning his back on his family
when actually she’s been ignoring and hating her own for years. I had every
sympathy for Ed here, no matter his evident lack of generosity, as I’m not too
fond of my own siblings either and would have to be heavily persuaded to do
anything remotely nice for them at any point. So the way Rose trampled on Ed’s
family difficulties made me feel quite ill – how very judgemental our agony
aunt actually turned out to be …
Aspects of the book I enjoyed were the
talking bird (more, please!), plus neighbour Bev’s story and her carer dog (and
usually I hate dogs), and how Bev turns her life around – in a human and
charming way – and wins through. In some ways, it was more Bev’s story than
Rose’s so perhaps Wolff focused her efforts on the wrong heroine? I also
thought there was a whole other book in the information given about Rose’s
mother, though in context here it was unfortunately rather Mills & Boon and
overwrought.
So, all in all, a good start but a poor finish.
3 stars. Disappointing and too long
