Although the countryside town of Beeversham looks picture-perfect,
nothing is quite as it seems. Behind closed doors, three women are struggling
to lead the lives they want.
Vanessa seems like she simply must have it all - she's beautiful, rich
and married to gorgeous actor, Conrad. But beneath the glitz, she is asking
herself whether this really is the life she wants to lead - when she has so
much, why does she feel so empty?
Meanwhile, Fleur is trying desperately to save the farm that her family
have lived on for hundreds of years, when playboy Beau makes her an offer she
can't refuse.
And Catherine has given up the high-flying career she thought she always
wanted, and is trying to build a wonderful new life in the country. But finding
rural bliss is harder than it looks.
Hopes and dreams, loves and losses - and lots and lots of secrets - let
Jo Carnegie take you behind the scenes of one very special town.
Since I
first saw the cover of Jo Carnegie’s latest novel ‘Party Games’ and had read
the blurb, I was secretly hoping I would be receiving a review copy, and
thankfully, I did (thank you, Transworld!). I hadn’t read anything by Jo Carnegie
before, but I really liked the sound of ‘Party Games’. A picture-perfect
village, three female characters with their own stories to tell, hopes, dreams,
secrets... I knew, without a doubt, that this would be an entertaining read!
The town
of Beeversham is a small village in England where big things are about to
happen. An anonymous building corporation has plans to knock down the town’s castle
and build a large theme park instead, promising new jobs and more tourists. The
inhabitants of Beeversham are against the plans, but how can they stop this
enormous change from happening? At the centre of this, we have three female
inhabitants of the small town: Vanessa, the UK’s favourite female celeb, who is
stuck in an unhappy marriage until she meets the new hunky gardener Dan; Fleur,
who is doing everything she can to save her family’s farm while trying to
ignore heartthrob Beau’s romantic advances; and Catherine, who has given up her
career as a successful magazine editor in order to start a family in the
countryside, but when she can’t get pregnant she finds herself looking for something
else to keep her occupied. Much is happening in the small town of Beeversham,
but no one knows what enormous changes lie ahead...
Where do
I start with this novel?! After about fifty pages, I already noticed a lot was
going on. Different storylines, many characters... It really took me a bit of
time to get into the story, but as soon as I did, I simply didn’t want to stop
reading. The novel became kind of addictive, like a soap opera, with all the
intrigue, lies, secrets, unexpected twists and turns. I loved the three female
characters (Catherine, Vanessa, and Fleur) and their individual storylines.
They were each really different characters that brought a fascinating story to
the table, and I loved how the novel focused on them in turns, while using the
main Beeversham tale as a red thread to which everything else was somehow
linked.
‘Party
Games’ can really be described as a soap opera on paper which is scandalously
enjoyable and addictive. I really liked Jo Carnegie’s writing style; pleasant, quick, easy-to
read. However, I did sometimes lose track of all the different characters and
who was who and what their link to the other villagers was. I really loved
Vanessa, Fleur and Catherine and the characters close to them, so I wouldn’t
have minded if some of the smaller characters would have remained anonymous.
Overall, ‘Party Games’ is an addictive, thoroughly enjoyable, scandalous and
glamorous read you will not want to put down, and I personally can’t wait to
pick up some of Jo Carnegie’s other novels.
Rating:
8/10
