My recent reading: Starting Over at Acorn Cottage, by Kate Forster. It jumped off the shelf into my hands at the local library. I know about Kate Forster’s novels, as we are connected on Facebook. I knew nothing about them except that they are very successful light fiction. So with my literary snobbery, I had not seriously considered reading them, until this one called my number. I’m so glad it did.
I would give it 5 stars, as an accomplished, well written, insightful story of a young woman who starts life again after being betrayed by her husband and her best friend. She dreams of an Escape to the Country, and buys a cottage in a small village on spec, online, without seeing it in real life.
Once she arrives, she finds it semi-derelict and despairs. Then, magical things start to happen. The cast of characters includes Henry, who travels round from village to village with his six-year-old daughter Pansy, fixing people’s houses, Rachel, who is a slave to her cruel mother but manages to run the local bakery and create delicious pastries and cakes, and Tassie, an 89-year-old wise woman who is gifted with second sight. Though there is a happy ending, it is hard-won, with dark secrets faced and shared, and hauntings from the past released. The plot is seamless, the characters convincing and the dialogue realistic.
Having shaken off my prejudice against light fiction, I must say I prefer a book that does not have pretensions but has integrity and captures the reader to one that is ambitious and aims high but has gaps and creaky parts. A book like this can charm, engage and affirm life values by being itself. I recommend it and will read more of Forster’s books.
