The Guestbook - Holly Martin

 

The Blurb
Welcome to Willow Cottage – throw open the shutters, let in the sea breeze and make yourself completely at home. Oh, and please do leave a comment in the Guestbook!

As landlady of Willow Cottage, the young widow Annie Butterworth is always on hand with tea, sympathy or strong Norfolk cider - whatever her colourful array of guests require. A flick through the messages in the leather-bound cottage guestbook gives a tantalizing glimpse into the lives of everyone who passes through her doors.

This includes Annie herself - especially now celebrity crime writer Oliver Black, is back in town. He might grace the covers of gossip magazines with a different glamorous supermodel draped on his arm every week, but to Annie, he’s always just been Olly, the man who Annie shared her first kiss with.

Through the pages of the Guestbook Annie and Olly, along with all the guests that arrive at the seaside retreat, struggle with love, loss, mystery, joy, happiness, guilt…and the odd spot of naked rambling!

Forget sending postcards saying wish you were here - one visit to Willow Cottage and you’ll wish you could stay forever.

The Review

I love it when an author looks for a new, unique way to tell a story and in The Guestbook Holly Martin has done just that.  I imagine it was a challenge to develop a plot in the way Holly has here (through a series of entries in the guest book for Annie Butterworth's holiday cottage) but it works incredibly well, giving the reader the opportunity to see the story from multiple viewpoints. Each character has an entertaining voice and the humour I've come to expect from this author is generously sprinkled throughout the book.

However, although there are moments I laughed out loud, it's not all plain sailing for protagonist Annie.  Since her husband Nick died she's thrown herself into running Willow Cottage as a holiday retreat.  She's given her heart and soul yet for some people that will never be enough.  There's also the added complication of the return of Olly, Annie's old flame...

Through the pages of the guest book, which is more like a diary of notes between Annie, Olly, Sophia (who cleans the cottage) and the guests, we are introduced to an array of colourful characters and are able to watch the relationship between Annie and Olly develop.  The plot naturally shifts with each change in characters, but that kept me interested - the mini subplots kept my interest up, and that along with the chatty writing style made this a very readable book.

The only problem for me was the cliffhanger ending - you can't leave it like that, especially when there's no follow up/sequel!  I'm hoping the author will share what happened next because I'm desperate to know!

This was a fun, fresh read which might appeal to fans of humorous women's fiction.

The Guestbook is out now, published by Carina.

With thanks to the publisher who provided me with a galley copy of this book in return for my honest review.

The Red House- Mark Haddon

Before I start I must admit to not being a huge fan of Haddon's highly acclaimed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I could appreciate it as well written,  insightful and empathetic, yet I just didn't really enjoy it. 

When The Red House was selected as the May read for my book group I wasn't sure it'd be my cup of tea.  The cover was gloomy and foreboding for starters, and my headspace hasn't been all that fantastic in recent months.  I didn't think I was up to coping with a depressing read (a Google search suggests that other editions of the book have a lighter cover- I wonder if owning one of those instead might have changed my perception of the book and therefore what I expected from it?).

However, The Red House isn't actually a depressing read.  Set around the Wales/England border (my old stomping ground!) it follows one week of a holiday.  It is an intense snapshot into family life where characters young and old wrestle with  the challenges of living- bereavement, marriage, sexuality, faith...Haddon certainly doesn't shy away from issues which other authors might be afraid to tackle for fear of offending.  But this is one of his greatest skills as a writer, his ability to explore and probe without preaching. 

There was no main character, and personally I didn't like that.  I wanted to be able to get my teeth into them (not literally, I'm not a cannibal) and felt that wasn't possible.  Daisy in particular, a teenager discovering Christianity alongside her burgeoning attraction to another female, interested me.  In some ways I felt short changed as she would have made a brilliant lead character-I want a follow up with just her story to see what happens to her next! (As an aside, you can read the letter I wrote to Daisy here ).

In some ways not much happens in The Red House.  There is no concrete ending, no happily ever after-this is not a spoiler, any book which follows just one week will naturally end before the story does.  Being honest, I can't say I enjoyed it.  It is well written and experimental without being out and out irritating (thinking of other experimental writers here who have used techniques that as a reader I found unbearable- Ali Smith's 'start in the middle of a sentence' in The Accidental for one), and I cared enough about a few of the characters to want to read on.  I also found it interesting to see how the relationships between the characters developed over the course of the week, and how some days were eventful; others more mundane.

This book walks the fine line between despair and hope.  And the hope was what kept me reading.  We can all benefit from a bit more of that in our lives.

The Red House is out now, published by Vintage.