The real Katie Lavender (by Erica James)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s twelve years since I read Erica James’ novel ‘The real Katie Lavender’. So, unsurprisingly, I had forgotten both the plot and the characters. On the whole I like this author’s novels - I keep collecting them - but some, in my view, are much better than others. I hadn’t remembered this as one of my favourites, but started it, a few days ago, with an open mind.

It’s quite a dramatic opening. Katie, who is thirty, thinks she’s immune from shocks. Her beloved father died a few years earlier, and then her mother died unexpectedly a year before the story begins. She is still grieving, and misses them both; but she’s living in her mother’s home, where she loves gardening. And she has a job that she likes. 

Except that, on the first page, we learn that she has just been made redundant. She doesn’t react badly, and as she returns to her desk she notices her phone ringing. It’s a solicitor whom she has never heard of, asking her to a meeting. She had received a letter from the company the previous day, and was puzzled as they were not a firm she had heard of before.

But she decides she might as well take an extended lunch-break. She calls her best friend Tess to tell her that she’s lost her job, and that she’s on her way to a mysterious meeting. Then she gets to the lawyer’s office, and is handed a letter, written by her mother, giving her some shocking information…

The rest of the book is about Katie making some difficult decisions as she goes to check out some people she had never previously heard of. She meets not just the person she was looking for, but his extended family. She happens to arrive during a 90th birthday party for a delightful lady called Cecily, and is taken for a waitress. Then there’s a terrible tragedy that’s hits the family, along with some potential scandal… and she is slowly drawn into their lives. 

It’s a character-based book with some people whom I liked very much. Cecily is astute, intelligent and kind. Her daughter-in-law Pen is passionate about gardening, and somewhat absent-minded, but she’s also very intuitive and generous. And Pen’s son Lloyd is a free spirit who works making furniture, and loves to travel. He has no interest in making a lot of money. He’s rather good looking, too…

On the other hand, Lloyd’s cousins Rosco and Scarlet are snooty hard-hearted and driven. Scarlet, married to Charlie, is also pregnant and wants to talk endlessly about her hopes and fears for her baby. And their mother is elegant, refined, and extremely brittle.

Tess is a good friend to Katie - almost like the sister she never had - and is happily married to Ben. Tess’s brother Zac is also a good friend; he’s an excellent hairdresser, and is gay. Perhaps somewhat stereotyped, but still a likeable person who cares a lot about his friends. Tess and Zac don’t agree with some difficult decisions Katie makes, but they are still fully and unconditionally supportive. 

The book encompasses business problems, although never in so much detail as to be boring. It covers adultery, too, and the different reactions to it that the betrayed spouses might feel. There’s a lot of conversation and some introspection. But although apparently I found it too long-winded the first time I read the book, I didn’t feel that way at all this time. Indeed, at times I could hardly put it down. 

The writing is good, and the nicest characters feel entirely three-dimensional. Perhaps the gradual softening of the more unpleasant people is a tad unlikely, but they never become fully friendly. And I thought it was an encouraging ending.  Recommended if you like fairly light-weight women’s fiction.

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