Book Review- Difficult Husbands by Mary de Laszlo

 

Difficult Husbands by Mary de Laszlo

Published: 31st October 2014

Publisher: Bookouture

Pages: 366

Available in Paperback and on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

 

Blurb

 

Three friends. One surprise inheritance. And the perfect plan to deal with troublesome husbands at Christmas time…

Newly divorced Lorna is struggling to adjust to life on her own. When she discovers that her beloved godfather has left her the grand (and crumbling) Ravenscourt House in the heart of Sussex, she soon has a project on her hands.

Nathan sells delicious goodies at Mulberry Farm. When he meets Lorna at a Christmas market, neither of them can ignore the chemistry. But as they get to know one another, Lorna wants to know one thing – is he after her or the house?

Together with Gloria – whose marriage to alcoholic Adrian has hit rock bottom, and Rosalind – struggling to deal with her womanising husband Ivan, the three friends hatch a plan. They’ll ditch their difficult husbands at Ravenscourt House and enjoy stress-free Christmases with their families. But nothing is ever that simple…

 

Review

 

Firstly I’d like to thank the lovely people at Bookouture for allowing me to read an arc copy of this through Netgalley. I was instantly drawn to this book because of its cover; it has such a beautiful wintery Christmas scene with a gorgeous looking house.  The premise for this book looked very interesting, three friends wanting to enjoy their Christmas without their tiresome husbands ruining things for their children.

Lorna, Gloria and Rosalind are three friends in their early forties who have all married men who are now in their sixties and struggling with their identities as they hit the dreaded old age. Lorna is newly divorced from husband Stephen, who has left her for a young foreign girl. She wants to enjoy her Christmas with children Flora and Marcus without having to deal with Stephen.  Gloria is hoping son Justin will come home for Christmas but with husband Adrian getting himself drunk and ending up in gutters it’s not looking likely. Rosalind is longing for husband Ivan to take more notice of her and girls Emma and Chloe rather than the young girls from his charity work who he claims need his help more.

When Lorna suddenly inherits Ravenscourt an old crumbling down country house, the three women dream up a plan to keep their husbands in the house over Christmas while they enjoy a peaceful day with just their children. However this Christmas the women get slightly more than they bargained for.

I didn’t really connect with any of the characters in this book; this could be because I’m younger than their ages and have not hit those life problems myself. I did sympathize with Lorna a little as she kind of seemed to have to deal with everyone’s problems and I’m glad that she seemed to find a little happiness from the budding romance with Nathan from the food business.

Although the plot was full of twists I felt the whole story could have been better, I think from the cover I was expecting more of the story to be based at the house. Some narrative from the men while they were at the house would have been added to the story as I felt they were dumped there, then picked up and there was no real explanation as to what exactly went on and how they felt about being abandoned at Christmas.

If you are looking for a gentle read  set around Christmas then I’d recommend this , it has some family dramas to add to the plot but for me it was missing a little of the sparkle of Christmas.

Rating 3/5