Grab Life With Both Hands
Old Friends Reunited by Maddie Please is a delightful contemporary novel that will put a smile on your face.
The leading characters are three sixty year old women who have been friends since school. It is lovely to get glimpses of the girls they once were as they reminisce. It is refreshing to have leading characters who are not in the first flush of youth. They were very easy for me to relate to.
We see that life is for living. While we are still breathing, we can still grab life with both hands. We may retire from our jobs but we do not need to retire from life.
A jaded life is given a new lease, fresh inspiration and the opportunity to try new things. Life opens up after accepting an invitation to travel from Britain to reunite with school friends in France. Life in Britain seems grey in contrast to the vibrancy of France.
As the novel progresses it is a joy to see a life blossom.
Our children always need us no matter how old they are. Too often they see us as their mum and not a person in our own right with a life to live that is ours alone.
I found one of the saddest scenes in the book was a phone call from a daughter to her mum (read the book and see what you think) – Just as a life was beginning to bud, the daughter wanted to re-box it. I was reminded of a similar scene in the Douglas Sirk movie All That Heaven Allows with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson where her children buy her a television to keep her company while they go off and live their lives.
The book was highly amusing as one of the leading ladies is accident prone. I laughed out loud at her antics in a kitchen with a slippy floor!
Old Friends Reunited was a really fun read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to much more from Maddie Please.
I received a free copy via Net Galley for a blog tour with Rachel’s Random Resources. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.
JULIA WILSON
Old Friends Reunited
Divorced and on a deadline, bestselling novelist Bea Pinkerton has a serious case of writer’s block. With her agent breathing down her neck, Bea will do ANYTHING to avoid writing another word.
So an invite to a reunion with her old school friends at a beautiful chateau in France, is Bea’s perfect chance to escape. Surely here, relaxing with old friends and drinking cold fizz, Bea will find inspiration?
But as soon as Bea arrives, she realises this is not going to be the peaceful getaway she anticipated. Her old school friends Gin and Audrie are in various states of marital distress and to top it off a camera crew has arrived to film the goings on at Chateau De St Cyr.Far from being calm, the trip is total chaos!
Thank goodness for Bea’s new French neighbour Laurent Sinclair – handsome, charming and perhaps exactly the romantic muse she needs to get her mojo back.
But is Bea brave enough to take a second chance at love at her age?
Perhaps with a little help from her friends…
Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3KQVpL9
Author Bio –
Maddie Please is the #1 bestselling author of novels including The Old Ducks’ Club and Sisters Behaving Badly. Having had a career as a dentist and now lives in rural Devon where she enjoys box sets, red wine and Christmas. She will be taking a new direction in her writing for Boldwood with joyous tales of older women.
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