Wednesday 30 May 2012

Review - The Saturday Supper Club by Amy Bratley

Started it Sunday night, couldn't put it down and finished it Monday night. Think that says it all really!

Eve's world was completely shattered three years ago when boyfriend Ethan disappeared out of her life with no reason or explanation. After a long time of hurt, her heart was finally repaired and she got together with childhood friend Joe who she is very comfortable with, very happy with and who loves her with all his heart.

Joe is a freelance journalist and when an article was due to be written about a Saturday Supper Club experience and one of the contestants dropped out Joe asks Eve whether she would stand in. She reluctantly agrees and is the first to host the guests. When her doorbell rings she is totally and utterly gobsmacked when the person standing on her doorstep is her long lost love Ethan!

After taking in the knowledge that he has reappeared in her life, Eve wants an explanation from Ethan. But is the Supper Club the right place to get it?

This book was absolutely tremendous and I really could not put it down. Eve and her sister Daisy lost their mom when both children were young girls and the way that writer Amy Batley writes about their emotions is outstanding. Having lost my own darling mom, not at an early age but later in life, I sat and sobbed when Amy described how Eve had been sat at her moms bedside as she was taken from them. They also cared so much about their dad who was trying to keep himself together and tried then to bring them up the best way a single dad possibly can. That all hit home I can tell you!

The confusion that Eve felt between her new love Joe and her old love Ethan was an amazing rollercoaster of feelings; the hurt that she originally felt when Ethan left her and yet the pleasure she felt again at having this man who was the love of her life in her eyes back in her life again after all this time combined with the guilt of should she tell Joe and if so, just exactly what should she tell him?

This book was excellently written and is a mixture of love, hurt, family, parenthood, sisterhood and friendship. I shed tears a number of times throughout! You had no idea at any point in the book what was going to happen next which kept it fresh, interesting, intriguing and needing to just keep on reading!  I loved every minute of it! Even the bits that made me cry!

Difficult to believe that this is only the authors second novel as it really was in my humble opinion up to the standards of some of the best world class chick-lit writers around and her writing is totally outstanding hooking you right from the very first page.  I will SO be checking out her first Novel and will be extremely excited to find out more about Amy Bratleys plans for the future.

Amy Bratley is the author of The Girls’ Guide To Homemaking (2011) and The Saturday Supper Club (May 2012) published by Macmillan. Her third book, The Antenatal Group is due out in May 2013. Amy was born in 1974, grew up in Northamptonshire, went to college in Nottingham, then moved to London and worked for magazines and newspapers as a writer. After meeting her husband and having two children, she recently moved to Bournemouth. In between nappy changes and the school run, she writes, mostly in bed when the rest of the house sleeps. Her first book, Girls’ Guide To Homemaking was a bestseller in Italy and she has been chosen for the Baccante Prize 2012.

You can find out more about the author at her website .
You can follow her on Twitter
You can buy this book via Amazon by clicking here. 

1 comment:

Carol said...

Not heard of this one, and glad you brought it to my attention. Great review, I am sold :)

carol