I've been reading Elizabeth Buchan's books for a few years now. I like her style, and her characters, although I tend to find them a bit over-filled with extra information that doesn't particularly interest me. Still, I'm gradually picking them up from second-hand shops, and find them good light reads on the whole.
'The good wife' is told in the first person, from the perspective of Fanny, who is married to Will. Will is a politician, and Fanny is a wine specialist, working with her much-loved father. She has something of a whirlwind romance with Will and is then thrown into the life she is expected to lead as the 'good wife' of someone in politics.
So Fanny has to watch what she wears, and what she says, and who she mixes with. She has to attend functions and dinners, and keep smiling, and support her husband at ballots - right through the night, sometimes, as the votes are tallied. She finds it quite a challenge at first, but she is deeply in love with Will and makes a determined effort to do all that is needed.
Their daughter Chloë is very important to them both. When the book starts she is 18, just finishing her A-levels, and preparing to do a gap year in Australia. Fanny is not ready to deal with her daughter leaving home - something I can well relate to! - and finds herself re-thinking her roles, and whether she might start doing more work with her father.
It took a while for the book to get going. There's a lot of switching between the past and the present, gradually building up a picture of Will and Fanny's lives, and the problems surrounding politicians trying to juggle work and home priorities. There's more detail about politics than really interests me, although I suppose it was necessary for the sake of authenticity, and also for readers who like practical details about how people life.
I found the characters good, though not as sympathetic as I would have liked. I could relate to Fanny as a mother, yet her role as Will's wife is so difficult that I found it hard to imagine how anyone - other than a dedicated politician - could possibly uphold it for so long. Naturally she harbours some doubts and resentments, and when matters come to a crisis, towards the end of the book, the pace gets going.
I found myself enjoying the latter third of the book considerably more than the first part. There were some thought-provoking questions arising about loyalty, and commitment, and forgiveness, and the ending was basically satisfactory, after a few shocks and surprises.
All in all, not a bad light read. I have certainly learned to be very thankful that I am not married to a politician!
Review copyright Sue's Book Reviews, May 2008
I had read three books by Elizabeth Buchan. I enjoyed 'The revenge of the middle-aged woman', more than I expected to. I was less sure about 'Against her nature', which I found a bit dull in places. And I had mixed feelings about That certain age', but still thought it was a good light read on the whole, if a little confusing in places. Still, I liked them sufficiently to put her others on my wishlist, and received another one for Christmas last year.
'Consider the lily' is a sort of village saga, set between the world wars. It features a marriage of convenience, and the many problems within it, exacerbated by the husband's love of his wife's cousin. Taking this thread alone, it's quite a moving story. Mistakes are made, misunderstandings arise, and - almost imperceptibly - affection grows. The conclusion was powerful and satisfying.
The reason for the marriage is that Matty - the wife - is very wealthy, and can put to rights the dilapidated ancestral home belonging to her husband. She loves him, and also wants to get away from her suffocating aunt, who has been her guardian since she lost her parents at a young age.
So there are also threads of the story involved in the gradual and tasteful renovation of the house, and Matty's growing love of the garden. There are secrets within the garden - her new husband and his family refuse to go in part of it, or even talk about it - and some mystery surrounding the family.
There's also the bad-tempered Sir Rupert, Matty's father-in-law, whose health becomes increasingly frail, necessitating the help of Robin Lofts, the newly arrived doctor in the village. Robin and Matty's sister-in-law are very attracted to each other, despite a significant difference of class, which was still important in those days.
But there are wider threads still, which didn't seem to intertwine much with the main plot at all, and simply made it confusing at first. The story opens, for instance, with Matty and her cousin getting ready for the wedding of Polly Dysart. Polly is in fact a future member of Matty's in-laws, but she really doesn't come into the story again.
There also seem to be several village people mentioned - all together, in the early chapters, with stories that don't really go anywhere, and simply left me confused. It wasn't until Matty's wedding - after over 100 pages - that the book settled down and became interesting. I nearly gave up before then, although I'm glad I didn't.
In addition to all this, there are interspersed short chapters simply labelled 'Harry' which mostly described, in detail, various flowers or anecdotes about gardening. I never did work out who Harry was - perhaps he was supposed to be a ghost (since Matty does feel haunted by several family ghosts). I soon realised that I lost nothing if I simply ignored these parts, which didn't appear to fit in with the rest of the book at all.
That all sounds rather negative, so I should balance it by saying that the writing is very good - crisp and clear, and in places moving. There is little rambling, and no dull description that I can recall (other than the 'Harry' chapters).
Matty's character, moreover, is very believable. I could sympathise with her strongly, and found myself hoping things would work out. Some of the other characters were more two-dimensional, some of them eminently forgettable, but I don't mind that too much, so long as there's a main character to relate to.
It took me over two weeks to read this, which is most unusual for me, despite 'Consider the lily' being a fairly long book - 570 pages in all. However I read the last half in the past three days, finding it more enjoyable and interesting the further it went on.
Overall, a good light read, if you can get past the early chapters.
'That certain age' is a pleasant enough light read by Elizabeth Buchan, though not particularly gripping. The book is actually two stories, each told in the first person, switching ever two or three chapters.
Barbara, one of the voices, is a forty-something housewife in the late 1950s. She's reasonably happily married to an airline pilot and has grown-up children whose view of life is somewhat different to hers. Every so often she wonders whether there's more to life than being a traditional housewife, and her worldview begins to change when she meets a young psychologist who introduces her to Freud.
The other voice is that of Siena, a wealthy career-woman in her mid-thirties, in about 2004. She too is happily married, and very busy with a successful fashion-orientated writing column, and potential TV show. However her husband is increasingly eager to slow down and start a family. Siena sees how disruptive children can be, and how depressed some mothers become, and keeps putting it off...
So the novel follows each of these women in their very different lifestyles, as they are challenged by the thought of breaking out of the life they have always known.
The people are believable, the writing fast-paced and clear, the plots reasonably satisfying. I found it a bit confusing at first having two entirely separate plots alternating without any clear link, and if I put the book down for a couple of days it was a bit difficult to remember who was who, and which story I was in the middle of.
Nonetheless, it was reasonably enjoyable. Recommended for holiday reading, when you don't want anything too heavy.
'Against her Nature' is the second novel I've read by Elizabeth Buchan. It has an interesting premise: two tall and somewhat feminist girls find themselves kindred spirits, despite very different backgrounds. One is from a privileged wealthy background, the other was abandoned as a baby and brought up by an austere and fanatically religious aunt. Both are interested in finance, and determined not to be caught up in domesticity or parenthood.
But there is also a huge strand to the book related to banking, finance, insurance, and risk in general, which I found confusing and rather dull. The period of the book revolves around a stock market crash, and people suddenly finding themselves responsible for huge debts which they had underwritten.
It was all rather horrendous, and there was way too much banking jargon for me to appreciate these parts of the book. I had to skim sections to get to the people-orientated parts of the novel, which I enjoyed on the whole. However I couldn't really empathise with any of the characters.
I did finish it - I was interested enough to find out what happened. But it felt like rather an effort to keep reading, at times. It would probably be of more interest to someone who is interested in financial institutions and insurance.
'The Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman' is not, in my opinion, a very inspiring title. The cover, pastel with slightly quirky clip-art type pictures didn't particularly grab me either. Chick-lit isn't really my thing, and that's what this book looked like. Still, I knew almost nothing about Elizabeth Buchan, and this book found its way onto my shelves, though I'm not entirely sure how. I picked it up in an odd moment, wanting something easy to read that wasn't going to grip me too much.
This is the story of Rose Lloyd, a middle-aged book editor whose life is reasonably predictable, and basically very contented. Suddenly her life falls apart... the back of the book gives a rather disappointing spoiler that meant I wasn't quite so surprised as I should have been when the revelation happens. But perhaps I would have guessed anyway. Most of the book is about Rose picking up the pieces, and the ramifications on her family, friends and social life.
I felt that it was well-written, quite believable, and thought-provoking. The characters are not nearly as well-rounded as, say, Rosamunde Pilcher's, and I didn't relate too deeply to any of them. On the other hand, I was interested to find out what was going to happen and what the 'revenge' of the title would be. I was pleased to find there was no heavy emotion, no artificial conversation, no lurid sex-scenes, and hardly any shopping. Some of Rose's acquaintances are obvious caricatures, but that isn't really a bad thing; it makes them more memorable.
One of the reviews on the back states that this novel is 'funny, sad, sophisticated'. I'm not entirely sure why. I can't remember anything that was funny. While the shock near the beginning is sad, it wasn't the kind of thing to cause my eyes to fill. Nor did it seem particularly sophisticated, but I suppose it is when compared with ordinary chick-lit (and yes, I've read two or three of them).
Overall, 'Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman' turned out to be considerably more interesting than I'd expected, although it is undoubtedly a light read. The ending is hopeful without being trite, or too neat and tidy, and all in all I enjoyed it.
Recommended - and I shall be looking out for more by this author in future.
