Housewife On Top

I thought this needed a post on its own. I finished Alison Penton Harper's 'Housewife on Top' last night. The characters also feature in her two previous books - 'Housewife Down' and 'Housewife Up'. They are all memorable. There is Helen - the merry widow (the housewife of the title); her friends Leonie and Marcus, Sally and Paul; sister Julia and her husband David and Helen's boss Rick. Added to this eccentric bunch is the glamorous and exotic Rosa who moves into the downstairs flat from Helen.

The book is funny with many laugh out loud moments. Helen has agreed to organise Christmas for Leonie who hates it. She also gets to organise it for Rick including buying presents for his many offspring by many different mothers. She is concerned about sister Julia who has hooked up again with the love of her life and appears to be having a mid-life crisis rather early.

The party which Rosa holds for all her friends and acquaintances is brilliantly described. The last few pages had me in tears, having had me laughing shortly before. Very good light reading with some marvellously eccentric characters.

Anne you would love Sally and Paul who are a gay couple - Sally is really Salvatore and a brilliant creation. Paul lends Helen some chandelier type earrings for Rosa's Christmas party and advises her on what to wear.

Hearts and Minds

I finished reading Rosy Thornton's 'Hearts and Minds' last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not at all like her first book, but as I am always keen on novels set in universities I was quite happy to read this one. James Rycarte has been appointed Mistress - or should that be Master? - of St Radegund's College, Cambridge. He is a man in a woman's world as it is an all female college.
The college is faced with a serious moral dilemma. It needs a large amount of money to restore the college library which is slowly sinking into the Fens.

Along comes an Italian benefactor willing to offer the money in exchange for his daughter's entry to the college. In addition to potentially compromising its admissions policy the college has to decide whether the money has been honestly come by - especially when the potential donor is arrested in Italy for corruption.

James is faced with trying to do the best for the college without making to many enemies in the process. He establishes a rapport with the senior tutor, who's marriage is falling about her ears, and whose days at the college are numbered. Sometimes Martha seems to be his only friend at the college. Will James survive his baptism of fire and manage to keep his job?

The moral dilemmas involved take this book above the common run and turn it into a thoughtful and humorous story which pokes gentle fun at some of the characters who can be found at any Oxbridge college.

I'm now reading Alison Penton Harper's 'Housewife on Top', successor to 'Housewife Down and 'Housewife Up'