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The Year of What If by Phaedra Patrick #Review

  I am delighted to join in the celebrations for the latest novel by Phaedra Patrick , The Year of What If. You can read my review of The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper   here and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy  here Can the future be rewritten? On the verge of her second marriage, Carla Carter knows she’s finally found the one. She and her fiancé, Tom, met through Logical Love, a dating agency she founded for the pragmatically minded, and she’s confident that, together, they will dispel an old family curse claiming Carter women are unlucky in love. But Carla’s highly superstitious family insists she visit a fortune teller before her big day, and the tarot cards reveal that a different man holds the key to Carla’s happiness – someone she met while travelling during a gap year, twenty-one years ago. This startling information spurs Carla to trace and revisit the ex-boyfriends she met during that time before she walks down the aisle. From Barcelona to Am...
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The Carer by Deborah Moggach #Review


Today I am delighted to feature Deborah Moggach's novel, The Carer. 

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever, a deliciously funny, poignant and wry novel, full of surprising twists and turns:

James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy’s virtues, their shopping trips and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss.

Then something extraordinary happens which throws everything into new relief, changing all the stories of their childhood - and the father - that they thought they knew so well.

My Thoughts

This is a fabulous read. It led me up the garden path, right through the back garden and back again and I failed to pick up on its great surprise. Written in two parts, you see life through James' children's eyes and then in the latter part, realise what the true picture actually is.

    You realise in the end that it is an examination of human relationships and marriages, and the damage that people can inflict without thinking. Phoebe and Robert have to take a long hard look at themselves and re-evaluate everything they thought they knew. Full of quiet menace at the start, you find that there is a heart-warming side to the story. The characters are shown in subtle relief and relationships exposed. Class and intellectual snobbery are thrown into the mix, as well as ageing, treachery, betrayal and whether one should accept a bit less in life if it makes you happy.

In short: A social comedy to savour.

About the Author

 
Deborah Moggach, OBE is an English novelist and an award-winning screenwriter. She has written nineteen novels, including The Ex-Wives, Tulip Fever, These Foolish Thing, Heartbreak Hotel and Something to Hide. She lives in London.

You can follow Deborah here: Goodreads 

Book link: Amazon UK 

Thanks to Deborah Moggach and Tinder Press, and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours  for an advanced copy of the book and a place on the event.  

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