Review: Flavours of Love

By Mia Olorunfemi


Synopsis

'I'm looking for that perfect blend of flavours; the taste that used to be you. If I find it, I know you'll come back to me.'

It’s been 18 months since my husband was murdered and I’ve decided to finish writing The Flavours of Love, the cookbook he started before he died. Everyone thinks I’m coping so well without him – they have no idea what I’ve been hiding or what I do away from prying eyes. But now that my 14-year-old daughter has confessed something so devastating it could destroy our family all over again, and my husband’s killer has started to write to me claiming to be innocent, I know it’s only a matter of time before the truth about me and what I’ve done is revealed to the world.

My name is Saffron Mackleroy and this is my story.

Review

Unlike many of Dorothy Koomson's latest titles which portray families captured in an dramatic world of crime, suspicion and secrets with many voices telling and retelling the story, The Flavours of Love features only one main narrative voice. This is refreshing, enabling the reader to focuses sorely on how the chain of events effect the main character, whilst Koomsoon kindly leaves what the other characters are feeling or doing to the reader's imagination.

In this story, our protagonist, Saffron Mackleroy is a middle aged mother of two who loses her husband, Joel Mackleroy, to an unsolved murder 18 months before the book begins. Only herself and her daughter, Phoebe, know who the killer is, but it is too dangerous to inform the police of what they know. This is the main hook of the story, and it was definitely good enough to grab my interest.

In and amongst the main chain of events, as Saffron gives a present and retrospective narrative of her life, there are also other secrets and subplots which DK is always very good at creating and managing. Most of them work to compliment the main storyline, drawing out the strengths and weaknesses in Saffron's character as she works through her bereavement and her new life as a single mother. However, a couple of the other subplots do not add to the story significantly enough.

In the efforts not to give away any spoilers, I will only say that The Flavours of Love also includes some episodes of passion, love, and very tentative budding romance affecting both Saffron and her daughter. There are also other serious issues being tackled in this novel such as severe eating disorders, unexpected pregnancies, and adoption. However, as mentioned already not all of these additional plots add much to the main story... Which is, who is Joel's murderer? Why did she kill him? How is she managing to send passive aggressive and downright threatening letters to Saffron? And when will she be brought to JUSTICE?

What makes me happy about The Flavours of Love, is that all of these questions are answered by the end of the book in a clever and satisfying way that brings a degree of closure to the story, and there seems to be a feel good factor springing from a book which started with so much grief and desperate dwelling in the past.

I won’t say that this is my favourite from DK, however it is definitely an enjoyable read and the writing is intimate, engaging and easy to follow!

A Year in Books 2013

Merry Christmas Everyone!! Last Christmas

Synopsis

For Lucy, the best Christmas present is forgetting the past.

Eager to banish the ghost of Christmas past - when her boyfriend dumped her on the streets of Paris - Lucy is determined to make this the best Christmas ever. She rallies friends and family for an epic celebration that just happens to fall on the same day as her ex's festive wedding. Furious at how she's been treated, Lucy can't help relishing the party v wedding smackdown.

But when the wedding is threatened and only Lucy can help, can she find the spirit inside to save the day, or will this Christmas be even more disastrous than the last


Quick Thoughts 

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

This year I haven't been feeling very Christmasy. I've been grumpy and out of sorts. However this book has put me in a Christmas mood. It's well written, full of romance and perfect for Christmas. A great read for everyone looking for a festive read.

Merry Christmas Everyone. Hope you have a lovely day filled with love and joy.

Review: The Husband's Secret

Synopsis

Mother of three and wife of John-Paul, Cecilia discovers an old envelope in the attic. Written in her husband's hand, it says: to be opened only in the event of my death.

Curious, she opens it - and time stops.

John-Paul's letter confesses to a terrible mistake which, if revealed, would wreck their family as well as the lives of others.

Cecilia - betrayed, angry and distraught - wants to do the right thing, but right for who? If she protects her family by staying silent, the truth will worm through her heart. But if she reveals her husband's secret, she will hurt those she loves most . . .

Review

I once watched a film, The Women. It was a laborious bore from start to finish. This is exactly how I felt whilst reading the Husband's Secret. I should say that the first two chapters of this book are gripping and funny however the rest of the book slides into tedium. The cover is beautiful, I had very high expectation from Moriarty and it failed to deliver.I was unsure what the author was trying to achieve, did she want the serious style atmospheric thriller or is she attempting a a Marian Keyes with wit and humor.

This book falls between the two. Jodi Picoult is the queen of moral dilemmas and intertwining characters and she does this very well. Moriarty fails to do this, the end result being that The Husband's secret is an overly long bore. The end is also predictable and could have been shorter by a couple of chapters.  It suffers from The Dorothy Koomson syndrome, there are too many characters and way too much of everything. It is also as believable as Prince Harry marrying a Katie Price.

There were too many women competing for my attention and unfortunately not a single voice deserved my time.  Now I know how George Clooney feels.

Quick Review: After The Party

Synopsis

Eleven years ago, Jem Catterick and Ralph McLeary fell in love. They thought it would be for ever, that they'd found their happy ending.

Then two became four, a flat became a house. Romantic nights out became sleepless nights in. And they soon found that life wasn't quite so simple any more.

Now the unimaginable has happened. Two people who were so right together are starting to drift apart - Ralph is standing on the sidelines, and Jem is losing herself. Something has to change. As they try to find a way back to each other, back to what they once had, they both become dangerously distracted - but maybe it's not too late to recapture happily ever after ... Purchase

Review

There's no doubt in my mind that Lisa Jewell is a fantastic author, her voice is unique, captivating with a hint of cynicism and although I enjoyed After The Party, there was a part of me that didn't quite believe in the characters or the story-line.

This is the sequel to Ralph's party which I haven't read and after reading After the Party will not be reading. However this also meant that I didn't know the characters or their background as well as someone who has read Ralph's Party.   We meet Jem and Ralph twelve years later (After Ralph's party), they have two children, they've suffered a few miscarriages and fertility issues. They are deeply unhappy with their lives both unknowingly looking for a way out. I had a feeling that this was a great book for those who've read Ralph's party, for those of us who haven't, it was just like any other book about relationships; not particularly unique enough to stick in my mind as an all time great.

Review: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

Synopsis

Benjamin Benjamin was at rock bottom. Homeless and down to his last penny, enrolling on a short night course in the fundamentals of care-giving seemed the smart thing to do. But nothing in the manual could have prepared Ben for Trevor, a sarcastic teenager stuck in a wheelchair. And that's assuming Ben read the manual properly in the first place...

The first rule of care-giving is Be Professional. So Ben probably shouldn't tell Trevor why his wife Janet is divorcing him. He probably shouldn't mention that he contemplated suicide last night either.

The second rule of care-giving is Don't Get Emotionally Involved. So Ben definitely shouldn't pack Trevor into the back of a campervan and drive hundreds of miles through the desert so he can patch things up with his father. Especially when Trevor's mother has absolutely forbidden it. Especially when an epic road trip like this could go so disastrously, gloriously wrong...

Funny and tragic, this is the story of an unlikely friendship and a man and a boy's journey back to life.

Review

"I was broke when duty called me to minister to those less fortunate than myself, so maybe I'm no Florence Nightingale. And maybe in the light of all that happened with Piper and Jodi, I'm not qualified to care for anybody."

The Revised Fundamentals of Care giving is a life lesson in appreciating the simplest things in life, in believing in hope and finally a story about a man shrouded in guilt looking for a way out of his own head. It is centered on Ben, a caregiver walking through life remorseful, filled with regrets. Ben, a once stay at home day with a happy marriage and two beautiful children is at his lowest point somewhere between sadness and delayed depression. He gets a job as a carer for a smart-arse, quick witted boy and together they embark on a road trip across America to see the boy’s father with whom he has a difficult relationship. Along the way there is a birth, a teenage girl with attitude, unpalatable food and questionable motels.  

 

Ben is a sorrowful character, immersed in depression, he wishes and hopes for a better tomorrow where his wife won't hate him and his kids play with their granddad on a sunny day in June.  Instead he is faced with a bleak future without his children or his wife. Ben recounts throughout the entire book his previous life describing the domestic home as stills in a picture frame, he gazes at them knowing that he can never get back those moments of sitting in the park with his children and his wife. We learn early on that his children are dead and he blames himself and it’s almost as if he can never forgive himself.

 

Lyrical almost, the story draws parallels between his life now and his life then, capturing a soft, centered musical fleet of emotions, moments in life painted as a long forgotten memoir. The characters are real and the dialogue is superb. I began to question whether Ben would ever find happiness and the end scene where Ben has a heart to heart with his ex-wife we are given  hope that he will finally be happy. With the death of his children, Ben might never find complete happiness however there’s hope and hope is all we ever have. 

Review: Learn Love in a week

Synopsis

After ten years of marriage, Polly and Arthur are at crisis point:

Polly

'Arthur is the IKEA wardrobe of husbands. He looks good in the pictures, but if you ask him to hold anything, his back pops out.'

Arthur

'I have the libido of the Giant Panda; I know what sex leads to. It leads to a small person who likes to post toast in the DVD player.'

Can they learn to love again? And if they can, will they still choose each other?


Review

Like many relationships, there comes a point where love becomes stale, monotonous, long winded, a never ending surge of dreariness and sexless existences. Love in real life is a disappointment, when the romance and the flowers have stopped, replaced by nappies, Mr Tumble and school runs, that’s when the real challenge begins, this is the point where divorce becomes an option. How do relationships survive past this point?  Why do couple’s divorce and how do so many others make it work past ten years?  As much as I dislike Gwyneth Paltrow she put it perfectly in one of her interviews “I asked my dad once, “How did you and Mum stay married for 33 years?” And he said, “Well, we never wanted to get divorced at the same time”.  

This is where Arthur and Polly are at the beginning; she is tired and fed up with Arthur and his beautiful incompetent body, she longs for what could have been with James, a guy who could have been the one. She is plagued by memories of that one perfect date and wonders how her life would have had she ended up with James. She is tired of being the breadwinner and longs for a house somewhere in the countryside which she cannot afford whilst she’s with Arthur.  Arthur, a stay at home dad loves his wife and children however he is fed up of feeling emasculated and unappreciated by Polly. He loves her and wants to make it work and for this reason they manage to stay together. However getting to that point where they finally find happiness, they go through trials from best friends, nipple licking, pool parties, obnoxious teenagers and hospitals all in a week.

Learn Love in a Week, a simple read, made spectacular by the anecdotal and conversational way in which we are immersed into Author and Polly’s life. This is a story seen from three view pints, Polly, Arthur and Emily (Polly's best friend). Arthur is a lovely characters, self pitying and incompetent at times but all the same just as wonderful. Polly was annoying, constantly nagging and unappreciative, she is unsure of who she is and in her state of confusion, she hurts those around her. Emily was an unnecessary voice, an intruder in a story that should have sorely been about a couple going through trying times. 

In the end this was a great read and as much as I tried I found it impossible to put down.