Conditional love (by Cathy Bramley)

(Amazon UK link)

On the whole, I enjoy the novels by Cathy Bramley. They’re character-based, mostly light-weight, and well-written. I have several of them in paperback form, but when I saw a couple of them on offer for the Kindle at 99p, I decided to download those rather than add them to my wishlist. 

I read ‘Conditional love’ while I was travelling, in part on my Kindle and in part on the app on my phone; I find it very convenient to do this, as a downloaded book can be read when offline, and dipped into at any odd moment. And it’s not the kind of novel that I found difficult to put down, nor to pick up again and continue after a gap of a day or more.

Sophie is the main protagonist of this book, which is told in the first person. She’s in her thirties, and at the start of the book she’s in a comfortable relationship with a good-looking man called Marc; so much so that she is half expecting a marriage proposal at any moment. She wakes up on Valentine’s Day after they spent a night together… so she’s devastated when, in contrast to her expectations, he announces that he’s breaking up with her. 

The rest of the chapter follows Sophie, a bit zombie-like, through the day, and fills us in on some of her background. She’s evidently a likeable, peace-loving person who usually goes along with what other people want. She lives in a flat which she shares with two other women of similar age: Jess, who is a teacher, and Emma, who works in pottery.  

Then Sophie receives an unexpected letter telling her about an inheritance from a great aunt whom she had never heard of. And when she meets the lawyer who sent the letter, she learns that the cottage and money she has been left have one condition attached: she must meet her father.

Sophie grew up with a rather bohemian mother, who is now living in Spain and singing on stage. Her mother would never speak about her father, whom, she said, walked out when he knew she was pregnant. And while she’s naturally curious, and part of her would like the opportunity to meet her father, she doesn’t want to hurt her mother; and she’s pretty sure she won’t have anything to say to him…

As with other books by Cathy Bramley, this is primarily character-based. But it’s a good story too. The details of the inheritance, and plans for updating the cottage are very interesting. The eventual meeting is long-anticipated and quite dramatic, as is Marc’s sudden eagerness to see Sophie again when he learns that she will have some money. 

However, by about half-way through, I was beginning to find Sophie a bit annoying. She’s rather naive, and tends to jump to conclusions without listening to explanations. She makes snap judgements, often ill-advised, and I became quite concerned when it looked as though she was going to get back with Marc. This is an indication of great characterisation, of course; Sophie totally got under my skin, and I wanted to take her aside and tell her to give some people another chance, while definitely not being taken in by her sleazy ex-boyfriend.

There’s quite a bit more to it, too; I found Sophie’s mother rather over-dramatic and hard to believe in, and some of the later scenes were, perhaps, a tad too neat and tidy for reality. But overall, I did enjoy the book and would recommend it - although I didn’t think I was going to in the first chapter. However, although there are a lot of references to people sleeping together, there’s nothing gratuitous, and the first chapter was probably necessary in order to show Sophie’s emotional state at the start of the novel.

Review copyright 2026 Sue's Book Reviews

Emily's quest (by Lucy Maud Montgomery)

(Amazon UK link)

Since I reread LM Montgomery’s ‘Emily of New Moon’ and ‘Emily climbs’ earlier in the year, it was natural to reread the third in the trilogy, ‘Emily’s quest’. I started in paperback form, then switched to Kindle as we were travelling; it’s taken me much longer than I would normally take on a relatively short book. I last read it in 2005, and hadn't remembered anything about it. 

Emily, is an adult at the start of this book. She has completed her formal education, and is returning to the small town in Canada where she lives at a house called New Moon with her elderly aunts and her cousin Jimmy. Not that we see a lot of them, other than with comments to and about Emily, both positive and negative. Emily is still passionate about writing and has had several short stories accepted by magazines and newspapers. She is determined to pay back her relatives who supported her during her college years. 

The elegance of the hedgehog (by Muriel Barbery)

(Amazon UK link)

I had never heard of Muriel Barbery, but her book ‘The elegance of the hedgehog’ was chosen for our local reading group. I liked the cover when my (used) copy of the book arrived, and thought the blurb on the back sounded very interesting. It was originally written in French, and set in Paris, so I have been reading a translation. 

Indeed, it’s not just set in Paris: almost everything in the book takes place in a luxurious apartment block in Paris. There are two main protagonists in the book, and at first sight they seem quite different. Renée is the concierge; she’s middle-aged, widowed and tells us that she’s somewhat overweight. 

Paloma is a twelve-year-old girl who lives in one of the flats with her parents and older sister. Her parents are supposedly socialists, but they’re also very wealthy. Paloma has decided that she’s going to kill herself on her 13th birthday. She sees a tedious adulthood ahead of her, and doesn’t think she can escape. 

Standing on my knees (by Jeff Lucas)

(Amazon UK link)

I do like reading - and rereading - books by Jeff Lucas. He’s a British pastor who works in the United States, and he has a somewhat dry sense of humour that comes through in his writing. He acknowledges his failings - possibly exaggerating them at times - rather than trying to tell his readers what to do from the point of view of an expert. And I find his style very readable.

It’s almost exactly ten years since I read ‘Standing on my knees’, so it was definitely time for a reread of this book, which is about prayer. There are many available books on this topic, of course, as the author acknowledges. But many of them try to share the secrets they have learned, or the benefit of their experiences, rather than sharing, with the reader, in the many difficulties that may have to be overcome. 

There are ten chapters in this fairly short book, and I aimed to read one every day, though sometimes I took a couple of days over a longer chapter. I thought the subject was covered in a very encouraging, inspiring way. The first chapter looks at some of the people in history who were expert in praying; the author admires them, as he does with those called to be intercessors who have no problem spending significant amounts of time with God. But he tells us that this book is for ordinary Christians who sometimes struggle to spend more than five minutes in prayer, and whose minds tend to wander rather than focus. 

The Cupid effect (by Dorothy Koomson)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s fifteen years since I read Dorothy Koomson’s novel ‘The Cupid effect’.  Unsurprisingly, I had totally forgotten the story as well as the characters. But I did vaguely recall that I had liked it the first time around, so was looking forward to rereading it.

The  main character is a young woman called Ceri, who lives in London. Since it’s an abbreviation of the Latin name Ceresis, I thought of the pronunciation as ‘Serry’, or possibly ‘Cherry’. But she’s greeted by an old friend as ‘Kerry’, so I’m assuming that’s the intended pronunciation. Not that it really matters. The book is narrated in the first person from her perspective.

Ceri is a likable and intelligent person, who gets far too involved in other people’s problems, particularly romantic or sexual ones. This isn’t deliberate on her behalf, but she’s a good listener, and people seem to gravitate towards her, telling her their life stories. This often includes things she would rather not know, and she becomes quite overwhelmed.