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Book Reviews Title Ralph's
Party Fiction-Net
Rating Buy It
From Amazon.co.uk - BUY
NOW! Cover
Story Meet the
residents of 31 Almanac Road in a romantic,
engrossing novel that takes you up the garden path,
through the front door and into the most intimate
parts of other peoples' lives. Ralph and Smith are
best friends. Until they fall for Jemima their new
flatmate. Jem knows one of them's the man for her -
but which one? Karl and Siobhan live in the flat
above. Happily married for fifteen years, it looks
as if nothing can spoil their domestic idyll.
Except maybe Cheri the femme fatale in the top
flat. She's got her eye on Karl and she isn't about
to let his fat girlfriend stand in the
way... We
Say A great idea for
a piece of light-hearted slushy fiction - three
flats that are home to six very different people.
The story evolves around how their lives come
together. I enjoyed the
majority of this book in a single day, with only
the last few chapters carrying over to the next
because it's definitely the final chapters that let
this book down. The characters are definitely
likeable, even to some degree the 'baddie' of the
story, Cheri. And the scenes between Ralph and Jem
are very sweet - I was willing them together as the
author would have intended. But the characters do
tend to fall apart late in the book and change
their general behaviour a little too much for
belief. To make one other
fault, Lisa Jewell should give her readers a bit
more credit for intelligence. There are one or two
occasions where she unnecessarily points out what's
going on - just in case we don't 'get
it'. Overall, not a
stunner but this is Jewell's first novel and, for
that, it's a pretty good shot. I expect she will
improve with the undoubted talent she has shown
here. Review by: Rob
Cook |
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