|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
TWENTIES GIRL is surely the happiest and most enjoyable book I have so far read this year. My most heartfelt thanks go out to the publicist who so kindly sent it to me. She must really know my tastes! Lara Lington begins her first person narrative with seven (a baker's half dozen?) lies which she has told her parents. As these are lies, the reader gathers the truth - that she is the only active partner in a foundering headhunting company, that her best friend has dumped her, that she can't afford to buy proper food, a smoke alarm or pay parking fines and that she wishes to avoid her family. Josh, Lara's erstwhile boyfriend has dumped her and she really doesn't wish to attend the latest family gathering which, in fact, comprises Lara's 105 year-old great aunt's funeral. It doesn't help that Josh has sneakily complained to Lara's parents that she refuses to accept that she is dumped and seeks their help in convincing her to stop her relentless texting. Bill Lington, Lara's uncle, is a millionaire who claims to be self-made - self-made with the aid of "two little coins." that is. When Lara, in desperation, requests help from him, in the form of a job, he offers her two ten pence coins so she can propel herself into wealth in just the same way he claims to have done. During the funeral service, Lara hears a girl's voice demanding to know what has happened to her necklace. Lara's attempts to communicate with the girl (who is approximately her own age) come to grief when it becomes apparent that she is the only person who is aware of the girl's presence. Life (or even death) becomes extremely complicated when Lara learns that the girl is the ghost of her great aunt Sadie, whose funeral she is attending. Sadie is appalled when she discovers the nature of the service and demands that the funeral be stopped. Unwillingly, Lara obeys Sadie's instructions but then has to think up a convincing reason for the halt. Sadie was murdered! Well, she wasn't, but it's a sufficient reason for the priest to stop the funeral. The downside of that particular success is that Lara must inquire into a non-existent murder at the side of a non-existent person who becomes a friend, even if she is a ghost. As I said in the opening paragraph, this is a truly happy novel. Mind, there are undertones concerning the way we treat older relatives and, indeed, elderly people in general, that provide a less happy comparison with the exceedingly happy adventures of the book. The characterisation is, on the whole, well done. Surely all of us can remember the pain of a love affair gone wrong, no matter how unsuitable we eventually realise was the match. No doubt we have all met someone who is young and completely self-absorbed, similar to Sadie, even if not garbed in a nineteen-twenties body.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, August 2009
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
