Stevie‘s review of Halfway There (Sisterhood of the Halfways, Book 1) by Stef Nichols
Romantic Comedy published by Stef Nichols 01 Sep 17
I generally approach self-published debut novels with a high level of caution, although I know people who’ve chosen to go it alone after a lot of hard work and produced highly decent books. Likewise, much as I enjoy reading about rural intrigue when it’s written in ways that appeal to me, finding new authors in the genre can involve digging deep into a very mixed bag. All that said, I decided to give Stef Nichol’s first foray into writing about village life a chance, and overall I’m glad I did.
Sarah Coles quit her job as a successful city lawyer following her divorce and used the settlement to buy a house in the Cotswolds. We never entirely get a handle on where her money comes from these days, only that she works part-time for various charities, which can hardly support the lifestyle she seems to enjoy: clapped-out car notwithstanding. When not otherwise employed, Sarah socialises with a group of local ‘ladies who lunch’ – lunch in this case mostly involving large quantities of wine and cake – and has begun a vague relationship with a local tradesman, whom she subsequently hires to build a gazebo in which she and her friends can hang out.
For the gazebo’s grand reveal, Sarah invites all her friends, and their assorted partners, buys in wine, and orders cakes from the new baker in the next village: Jack Mitchell, whose twenty-something son has already gained a reputation locally as something of a hoodlum. The cakes’ delivery sets off a chain of events leading to property damage, injuries, and various threats of legal action. At this point I was getting pretty annoyed with all the major characters, but then Jack himself came into the story.
Jack has recently returned to England with his son, after spending more than two decades working on community aid projects in various South American countries, and is not only a first-class baker – in spite of not particularly liking cakes – but also knows a thing or two about woodwork and the construction industry. He and Sarah have a prickly start, mostly due to his son and her now-ex-handyman-cum-boyfriend, but are beginning to make a go of things when one of Sarah’s friends digs up information relating to Jack’s past involvement with the wrong side of the law.
Sarah is not one to take anything she’s told at face value, and investigates for herself, while around her more petty legal disputes break out between the established locals – generally the instigators – and the newcomers. At this point there was one glaring flaw in my review copy: the family name of Jack’s alleged victim switches backwards and forwards from chapter to chapter: I can only hope the author fixed that in the final version. Eventually Sarah discovers the truth of what happened and is able to fix everything to the satisfaction of all concerned – with some help from the local vicar.
All in all, this book worked well for me as an introduction to the author and characters, not all of whom appealed – with the obvious exception of Jack and, possibly, his son. On the other hand, the next book appears to be about the most interfering, though not the most litigious, of Sarah’s friends, and I’m in two minds over whether I want to read a book in which she’s the heroine.
Grade: B
Summary:
Sarah Coles, forty-something divorcee and former high-flying lawyer, escaped London three years ago and now lives alone in a run-down Victorian house in the quiet Cotswolds village of Westwick, working part-time for local charities and driving a clapped out Honda Civic.
She belongs to the Sisterhood of the Halfways, part ladies’ support group, part rural mafia. The members of the Sisterhood focus on the good things in life: romance, wine, archery, gossip and cake. But when Sarah decides to build a modest summer house in her garden, things quickly spiral out of control.
Good friends turn bad as a minor mishap threatens to destroy her peaceful existence forever. At the centre of it all is local bakery owner, the mysteriously attractive Jack Mitchell, who makes exceedingly good cakes. But as Sarah tries desperately to put a brake on the bad blood (and litigation) that has followed events in her garden, it emerges that Jack has a shocking secret about his former life, one which threatens to put her in grave danger.
Read an excerpt.
Other books in this series:
