anaffairwithbooks's Reviews (441)

Review contains spoilers!

I found myself skimming this book. I didn't really like the character of Blix and I thought there were too many guys. Also, I would have been totally happy with her ending up with Jeremy and living a nice white picket-fence life in the same area as her sister and parents. Instead, this character I didn't like totally ruined that for me. Also, Blix kept saying that Marnie was supposed to "do great and big things" with her life. Where are those great and big things? I felt that part was also slightly cliche: she gets almost stood up by her fiance, gets her heart broken two weeks later and some old woman with "magical powers" is telling her that she is destined for a great life. No. Too cliche for me. And yes I know the whole white picket-fence thing is cliche too but, it doesn't involve magic. I guess I just wasn't a fan. I gave it two stars though because it did keep me interested for the first half of the book.

This reminded me a lot of Downton Abbey and maybe even a tad bit of The Great Gatsby but in England in 1941. It was filled with drama, suspense, and mystery. Bowen kept me entertained through the whole book and had me trying to figure out the clues with the characters. This novel is a great quick summer read.

However, I did think that the last chapter of the novel was unnecessary. It didn't add anything to the story for me. There were also moments in the novel that were too similar to the show Downton Abbey, which made some aspects slightly predictable and less original.

Sarah's writing was nice, but for me it was too repetitive and sounded like a cheesy Hallmark movie. I couldn't get past the first chapter. This book was not for me and I was pretty disappointed by it. Maybe I'll try again later.