I am delighted to be taking my turn on the blog tour today for Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering. My thanks to Rachel Gilbey of Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part and to the publisher for my digital copy of the book, which I have reviewed honestly and impartially.
Andi Glover loves nothing more than a good book.
Any book in fact because when you’re raised by unconventional parents who think school’s for squares, alongside a deeply conventional sister who escapes home as soon as she can, fiction is eminently preferable to reality.
The only problem is that fiction isn’t the best way to learn about the real world. When Andi starts her new live-in job at Templewood Hall for the eccentric Lady Dawe and her enigmatic son Hugo, it’s tempting to think she’s fallen into the pages of one of her favourite gothic novels.
But the plot twists at Templewood Hall are stranger than fiction and it’s not long before Andi questions if she’s living in a romance novel or a whodunnit. Bumps in the night, a missing heir, ghostly apparitions and secrets that have been kept for generations – the mysteries mount up. Then there’s the inscrutable gardener who seems to appear when needed – is Andi right to hope for a happily-ever-after end to her story?
Is it possible to read too many books? A strange question for a book blogger to ask and, before I read Happily Ever After, I’d have said absolutely not. But Andi Glover isn’t a normal reader. Brought up by unconventional parents, she has never lived in a house or been to school. Instead, she has travelled around in a converted bus in a nomadic lifestyle and has learnt about life from reading novels. This hasn’t necessarily given her the most grounded approach to life and she often lets her imagination take over. Which may have not been a problem before she ended up at Templewood Hall, inhabited by the eccentric Lady Tanith, her secretive son Hugo and possibly a plethora of ghosts. The most down-to-earth creature in the house is a cat. Andi starts to feel like she might be living in her own Gothic romance novel and lets her literary tendencies take over…
This book is a quirky wild ride through the mind of a hopeless book addict who finds herself surrounded by the cast of one of her books and isn’t really equipped to deal with it. She wants her life to be like a novel, but the characters won’t play ball and the plot isn’t linear and obliging. What do you do when the world isn’t parcelled up into neat chapters and a happy ending isn’t guaranteed? Andi is too quick to jump to conclusions and assume that tropes are a fact of life and it makes things extremely complicated until she meets someone who can pull her back down to earth.
This book is a clever idea which takes a romp through the plots of some of the greatest literary romances ever written, but shows us how we need to learn to separate fact from fiction and keep a firm grip on our sanity when other people seem to be spiralling into madness. The real world isn’t always fun but it is where we have to live, for better or worse.
The book is populated by a small but mighty cast of bonkers characters, particularly Lady Tanith, who is the epitome of rewriting history to suit your own narrative, and the truly appalling housekeeper who is firmly cast in the mould of all sinister literary housekeepers through the ages. Even the house itself is alive with all the gothic nightmares that fiction has given us through the decades. By the end I would not have been surprised if Dracula himself had been found stalking the grounds.
A romantic comedy for anyone who has ever fancied herself the heroine in her favourite literary novel and is in need of a sharp wakeup call. Tremendous fun and I continue to be in awe of Jane Lovering’s skills and imagination.
Happily Ever After is out now in all formats and you can buy a copy here.
And please do visit some of the other fabulous blogs taking part in the tour as shown on the poster below:
About the Author
WINNER – CONTEMPORARY ROMANTIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2023 with A COTTAGE FULL OF SECRETS (Boldwood Books) ROMANTIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2012 with PLEASE DON’T STOP THE MUSIC (Choc Lit publishing), RoNA ROSE (NOVELLA OF THE YEAR) 2018 with CHRISTMAS AT THE LITTLE VILLAGE SCHOOL AND FANTASY ROMANTIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2019 with LIVING IN THE PAST.
Jane was, presumably, born, although everyone concerned denies all knowledge. However there is evidence that her early years were spent in Devon (she can still talk like a pirate under the right conditions) and of her subsequent removal to Yorkshire under a sack and sedation.
She now lives in North Yorkshire, where she writes women’s fiction novels with funny bits and labours under the tragic misapprehension that men are queueing up for her. She owns possibly the world’s worst dog, a Patterdale Terrier who answers to – well, who knows, since she rarely comes back; she is also the owner of five practically grown-up children, and she has to spend considerable amounts of time in a darkened room as a result (of the dog, not the kids).
Jane’s likes include marshmallows, the smell of cucumbers and the understairs cupboard, words beginning with B, and Doctor Who. She writes with her laptop balanced on her knees whilst lying on her bed, and her children have been brought up to believe that real food has a high carbon content. And a kind of amorphous shape.
Not unlike Jane herself, come to think of it.
She had some hobbies once, but she can’t remember what they were. Ask her to show you how many marshmallows she can fit in her mouth at once, though, that might give you a clue. Go on, I dare you.
Connect with Jane:
Facebook: Jane Lovering Author
Twitter: @janelovering
