Good Year for the Roses

by Gil McNeil

[Leah]

Gil McNeil is an author I have always enjoyed! I count The Only Boy For Me as one of my favourite Chick Lit reads of all time, and I've always enjoyed her work. So I was super pleased to see her new novel A Good Year For The Roses on Netgalley - I wasn't sure Gil was writing books any more, so it was a very nice surprise to see she was! I was pre-approved for the title (always a joy to not have that anxious will I be approved or not? wait) so downloaded it to my Kindle straight away and I couldn't wait to get stuck in!

Some of my favourite plots in novels is the whole "starting over" theme, I like the idea of going somewhere new and starting again, somewhere fresh and unknown, and that's the theme of A Good Year For The Roses. Molly Taylor is divorced, isn't a big fan of her job as a teacher, and finds she's having to sell the home she lives in with her three sons, so when her beloved Aunt Helena passes away, and leaves Harrington Hall to Molly, she sees it as the perfect opportunity to start again, in the country! The hall is in need of desperate renovation to get it back to its best, but Molly is more than up for the job, and along with her eccentric Uncle Bertie, and Ivy and Dennis, the couple who tend to the house, Molly soon finds she's got her hands full, and she's not entirely sure she's going to be able to manage it all, but Molly Taylor does not give up on a challenge, and Harrington Hall is more than worthy of that challenge...

Gil McNeil has a very distinctive writing style - her chapters are long (like thirty minutes long) and her dialogue between character lacks the usual "he said, she said" approach, which is actually quite refreshing. We don't really NEED to be told who's speaking at any one time, especially when the dialogue itself lets us know, without any additional knowledge. But, I could have done with shorter chapters. It's hard to take a book to work, to read during your lunch hour when the chapters are so blimming long! There are natural breaks in the chapters, but I felt the chapters could have been shorter, but that's Gil's way! I really enjoyed A Good Year For The Roses, Gil is such a great writer and she manages to make you laugh and be serious, all at the same time. Her novels ALWAYS give me a chuckle, and in this case, the rather amazing Betty, the parrot, provided a lot of laughs and light relief. Bless her. She was a rude parrot, make no mistake, but she was funny. I liked the idea of her learning the ring tone to the telephone and chirping it out at all hours of the day.

A Good Year For The Roses is filled with typically warm, enjoyable characters. I feel Gil McNeil really excels with her character writing, she always makes you care, and I loved Molly, and her kids. As well as all the surrounding characters - Bertie, Ivy and Dennis, they all brought Harrington to life and it was so lovely to see the Hall restored to its former glory, and brought back to life by Molly and everyone. It was such a wonderful, warm read and it's so great to see Gil McNeil writing novels again! I've always enjoyed her novels, and here's hoping for many more in the future! A Good Year For The Roses was such an enjoyable read, and Gil's many fans will love it just as much as I did!

This review was originally posted on Girls Love To Read