Amelia Grey's Fireside Dreams

by Abby Clements

Amelia has a dream: toasting chestnuts by the fire with her husband Jack in their own cosy cottage. Their real life is another world - a cramped one-bedroom flat in Hackney. But when life takes a surprising turn, removal vans are soon heading to the Kent countryside. They soon realise the cottage makeover is a far bigger project than they'd anticipated. On top of that, there's Amelia's newly loved-up mum and her tearaway half-sister, Mirabel, to contend with - pushing Amelia and Jack's marriage to breaking point. Amelia begins to strip back the wallpaper and fittings in the cottage and discovers the story of the cottage's previous owner - and a hidden secret. As Amelia's ideas about love and family change, will her fireside dream finally come true?

• ISBN10: 1623655463
• ISBN13: 9781623655464
• Publish Date: 9 September 2014 (first published 26 September 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Quercus Books
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

When I received my copy of Abby Clements’ new novel Amelia Grey’s Fireside Dreams I was so excited. She’s such a popular author since her debut novel was released last year, and I was really looking forward to reading the novel. I haven’t actually read any of Abby’s books yet, although I did manage to read her Christmas novella that was released last year called The Christmas Bake Off and I was massively impressed with it. I had high expectations for Amelia Grey’s Fireside Dreams, but sadly, it wasn’t as fun as I expected it to be…

I really love the idea of home improvements and I love shows like DIY SOS so I was really pleased to see the plot of Amelia Grey was about a house renovation. I imagined it would be something like the film The Money Pit, a quirky, funny read, but it was a bit more serious and a lot less fun than I expected. The novel just seemed to motor on, ticking all the Chick Lit boxes as it did so and I was never really 100% vested in the novel, I wasn’t bothered if Amelia and Jack would make it through the renovations unscathed or if their cottage would ever be finished. Amelia could have been such a great character, but I felt like she never really came to life for me. She just seemed so flat and uninspiring. I totally get that home renovations are difficult, and money can be tight etc and in that regard the novel was very realistic and I appreciated how much strain can be put on a marriage when there’s a cottage to totally gut and put back together, but I dunno I just found myself not as interested as I wanted to be in the novel.

Amelia Grey’s Fireside Dreams will undoubtedly have its fans, because it is the perfect book to curl up with during the Winter months (or what passes as Winter months in Tenerife! :) ) I just appear to be in a bit of a reading slump recently, and I think I need some kind of butt-kicking book, something absolutely shocking to pull me out of my slump and this one wasn’t it. Which is a massive shame, actually. Abby is such a popular author and it is a solid novel, and I did finish it in the day, it just didn’t capture me the way I wanted it to, I wasn’t overtly interested in Amelia or Jack, although I did enjoy reading about the house being renovated, I did like to imagine all the colours being painted on the walls, and the beautiful claw-footed bath tub. It just didn’t work for me, really. It was OK and it ticked all of the boxes, it just didn’t blow me away and currently I’m trying to find a book that will blow me away, because I need something like that to jolt me out of my reading slump.