Lucy English

I enjoyed this book. I thought that Penny was a great female lead with the right amount of strength and grit. I also like the fact that it was set in my hometown of Boston with some local places mentioned. The look into online dating was so interesting and just when Penny finds her match , well I don’t want to spoil the book. Penny’s job as a social worker seems depressing to me but I loved how Penny would not give up on a down on her luck young mother and her two children, that made me like this character even more. The look into the online dating scene was hilarious at times but also a bit sad as well. I honestly thought that the mystery would go one way but it went in a whole different direction which worked well for me. Sorry about being so vague but I do not want to give too much away. I had no idea that this was a series but you can read this book as a standalone. I look forward to reading more books in this series.… (mais)

This is a short but satisfying read set in that period of the seventies when hippiedom was at its height. It’s evocative of its era without being overly nostalgic and convincingly conveys the highs and lows of rural life as a group of friends live out their dream in a damp and crumbling manor house in Norfolk. The charcters are great. I particularly liked eternal (and maddening) schoolboy Don. I would like to have known a bit more about lumpy and ineffectual Helen and why she had sunk so low, but there was no denying she was a recognisable type. When the heroine Tessa visits the house many years afterwards we see how the dream came crashing down, but the ending has just the right note of peaceful resolution. On a dark winter’s evening this book had just the right balance of joyful escapism and grim reality and I thoroughly enjoyed it.… (mais)

LUCY ENGLISH – OUR DANCING DAYS…Now what on earth was that all about…..?

I read this on the back of Lucy English’s previous novel Children of Light – which I had found excellent. I found the first few pages very interesting and set the scene well… then we went off on a journey around and through a number of characters, none of which I was particularly sympathetic or even interested in. They were predictable cardboard cut outs…Downward spiral to tragedy…the death scene was thrown away, and I still expected the hero/villain to appear at the end of the book. Boring and trite. BCID: 592-3534079… (mais)