Life Skills
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Julia's learning some lessons in love. A wonderfully romantic novel from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Wedding in Provence
'The queen of uplifting, feel good romance' AJ PEARCE
'Effortlessly lovable, warm and fun' CLOSER
'Katie Fforde is on sparkling form' INDEPENDENT
'Top-drawer romantic escapism' DAILY MAIL
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Sometimes you can't escape the past...
When Julia realises she holds more affection for a Labrador than she does for her actual fiancée, Oscar, Julia decides to change her life. She quits her job, dumps Oscar, and starts a new career as a cook on a couple of narrowboats.
Finally feeling like she's keeping her head above water, Julia is appalled when her past comes back to haunt her.
Oscar is persistent, her mother is a matchmaking nightmare and to top it all off her childhood enemy, the enigmatic, Fergus Grindley, arrives on the scene.
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The whole world loves Katie Fforde's work:
"Modern-day Austen. Great fun" Red
"Top-drawer romantic escapism" Daily Mail
"Warm, brilliant and full of love" Heat
"Delicious - gorgeous humour and the lightest of touches" Sunday Times
"Effortlessly lovable, warm and fun" Closer
"Curl up on the sofa with this book and dream... delightful" The Lady
"Deliciously enjoyable" Woman and Home
"Uplifting and delightful" Hot Brands Cool Places
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A seven-foot-wide, 70-foot-long hotel boat that cruises from London to Birmingham provides the off-beat setting for this breezy romantic novel by British author Fforde (Stately Pursuits). As the story opens, 34-year-old Julia Fairfax has just decided to change her life as radically as possible. She breaks up with her sexist upper-class fianc , quits her job and answers an ad for a ship's cook on a 10-passenger barge-like boat She hits it off immediately with her new employer, flighty 24-year-old Suzy Boyd, a wayward daughter of bluebloods who's embarking on her first season of managing her uncle's boat. But when the only other crewman abruptly quits, Julia and Suzy are left disastrously shorthanded until help arrives in the form of Fergus Grindley, sent by Julia's nosy New Age mother. Suzy hires Fergus despite Julia's longtime grudge against him over a childhood prank, and readers will quickly recognize that her aversion falls into the clich d category of hate-first, love later. When her ex-fianc (with his mother and black Labrador puppies in tow) books a two-week passage to try to win Julia back, the complications increase. Julia has a satisfyingly dry wit, and she's believable as an everyday heroine, adamantly independent yet self-conscious about her single status. The engaging plot is fleshed out with a supporting cast of relatives, crew and boat passengers. When Julia finds herself pregnant, however, and landlocked, readers may feel as though two different stories have been uncomfortably spliced together. Still, Julia and Suzy are funny and appealing, and their boating adventures turn them into a nautical Thelma and Louise as they explore female friendship, the lure of hunky men and sexual crises of several kinds.
