This Linda Taylor novel promised a somewhat frantic tale of a city girl moving to the country. I have to admit that as a country girl I quite enjoy these tales - it always amuses me how these 'city girls' find the most everyday things such a challenge. So was this tale of 'the simple life' going to cut it?
Ella Norton went into corporate banking to please her father, it was his job for all his life so the idea of doing something different never occured to her. However at 28, rich behind her wildest dreams, Ella decides that she's had enough. She's running herself into the ground and working so long and hard that she's not seeing any benefit of her wages. So she sells up and moves back to Oxfordshire, near where she grew up, buying a run-down cottage which she lives in with her two lodgers Faith and Miranda.
Faith, a veterinary nurse, is quiet, naive and unassuming wheras Miranda, a high class free-lance flight attendant, is brash, worldy and downright rude. Ella chose two housemates so different to reduce the possibility of clashes... but it doesn't seem to be working. On top of that the tutor on the horticultural course that she has signed onto is drop dead gorgeous and married. Oh and then they find a package of heroin in their bin and realise that one of their neighbours must be dealing drugs. When Jaz, abrasive detective in the local CID asks to set up an observation point in Ella's bedroom she starts to think that maybe the simple life isn't quite so simple.
This book moves along at a reasonable pace. The characters are in general believable, though at times Taylor verges toward the Jane Green school of thought in creating characters - it takes a long time to find anything endearing about either Faith or Miranda and as a result I found myself having to make myself continue reading in the hope they got better. The plot is in places sadly predictable, particularly when it comes to the love stories.
I enjoyed this book, but doubt I would find myself rushing to get hold of one of Taylor's other efforts. Whilst it filled a few hours, that is sadly all it did.
Like this? Try 'Restoring Grace' by Katie Fforde
