Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Book Review...Rumor has it...

Are you looking for a good beach read this summer? If so, you can do no better than Jill Mansell's Rumor has it (Sourcebooks Landmark), in which the heroine, Tilly Cole learns that what you hear isn't always the truth. Having been dumped by her boyfriend, she decides to up sticks and move from London to rural Gloucestershire to be near her best friend, consignment shop owner, Erin. To support herself, she takes a job as a personal assistant to Max, an interior designer with a precocious teenager, Louisa and a devastatingly handsome best friend named Jack Lucas. Jack has a reputation as a ladies man and Tilly has no intention of adding herself to his list of conquests, but circumstances throw them together, allowing her to see a different side of him. Soon she finds herself fighting her attraction to a man everyone tells her will break her heart even as he proves himself to be more than a shameless womanizer.

There are several sub-plots featuring Tilly's friend Erin, her boss Max and his former wife and a hunky teacher at Louisa's school. They add depth to the story without overwhelming the main plot, while reflecting the overall theme of appearances not always reflecting the truth. Ms. Mansell's talent lies in her ability to create quirky, sympathetic and compelling characters about whose fate the reader cares and creating storylines for them that highlight their particular personal journeys. Serving as background, small-town life is portrayed in all its gossipy yet close-knit glory, with just enough physical detail to ground it in reality. I could see the pub, the country lanes and Jack's house in my mind while I read.

Ms. Mansell's accomplished prose strikes just the right balance of narrative and dialogue. North American readers will occasionally encounter British expressions they don't understand, though in general the context makes the meaning clear enough. The story moves along quickly, as Tilly's dilemma deepens and her friends find themselves equally challenged by life's unexpected twists and turns. Are some of the situations in which our heroine finds herself a little far-fetched? Sure! But that's the fun of fiction.

As with other works by Ms. Mansell, I read this one almost compulsively, always reluctant when forced to set it aside to tend to the more mundane aspects of my life. Here's hoping you get to lose yourself in it on a gorgeous sunny day, when you have nothing but time to indulge in a moreish book.

Teresa

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Resurfacing..again...

Yes, spring term is now over and I'm back in the blogosphere for a while. I had so much work over the past fourteen weeks, I pretty much had no time for much else. And when I did manage to snatch a few hours here and there, I did a lot of reading. No writing, alas. My brain was pretty much completely dedicated to school stuff. That's not to say my characters haven't been trying to get my attention, but I had little to give them.

So I'm hoping over the summer that I'll manage better, given that I'm taking only one course. Despite my preoccupation with school, I've missed my truly creative side and know that at least some of my grumpiness is down to the fact I've had to suppress it to concentrate on reference assignments and learning about enhancing library web pages.

What keeps me from giving up entirely on my writing is knowing that school is a finite thing. In two years I should be done! And then I can go back to writing regularly. A hiatus may not be ideal, given that I still do want to get published but now that I've found library studies/work to be what I want to do on a regular basis, I have to dedicate myself to it. I'm generally a "don't do things by half-measures" kinda gal :) Which in the end, also makes me a better writer.

How about you? Do you sometimes have to set your writing on the back burner? Do you feel guilty? And do you get grumpy when you don't write?

Happy Earth Day!

Teresa

About to Start Reading: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier