Friday 7 June 2013

Books Read: Pippa Wright - The Foster Husband

Kate left her seaside home town of Lyme Regis for the bright lights of London when she was eighteen, and never looked back. Why would she? She had it all: the glamorous media career, the gorgeous husband. Until her marriage failed and she found herself with nowhere else to go.

Now she's unemployed, separated, and holed up in her dead granny's bungalow while she works out what to do with the rest of her life. Worse, she's forced to share her new home with Ben, the clueless and domestically challenged fiance of her bossy sister Prue.

Ben is a man in need of simple instruction. And Kate is a woman in need of a project. Her own marriage may be beyond saving, but perhaps she can stop her sister's husband-to-be from making all of the mistakes that doomed her own relationship. Kate decides that she will secretly train Ben, her foster husband, as a selfless pre-wedding gift to her sister.

But Kate may be about to learn a few lessons of her own about what makes a good marriage.


Although The Foster Husband is Pippa Wright's third book it's actually the first of her books that I've read.  From the synopsis I was curious as to what her training for her "foster" husband was going to entail...

Kate's return to Lyme Regis was as sudden and unexpected as her departure was when she fled the town for London when she was 18.  It's clear that she's something on her mind and wants to be left alone to think things through but her family has other ideas especially sister Prue who decides that Kate shouldn't be living alone in the cottage they both inherited from their granny, she ought to have a housemate in the shape of Prue's fiance Ben.

But after a few days of living with Ben, Prue realises that Ben is pretty much used to having someone doing everything for him so she decides to subtly teach him how to do things for himself to make him a better husband for when he marries Prue!   

The training of Ben was actually just a small part of the storyline, albeit an interesting one with some hilarious results, the main storyline actually was in relation to the mystery as to why Kate appears to have run away from her life.  Throughout the book we get to see little snippets from Kate's past life which all help to get a clearer idea as to the person she is and discover what exactly happened to make her make the return escape from London to Lyme Regis.

I have to say it was Kate's story that intrigued me most so not really sure why there was the need for the Ben storyline although then that wouldn't have made sense of the title! I found myself wanting to read the Ben training parts as quick as I could so that I could get back to learning more about Kate and what has made her the person she is today.  It's clear that she's hiding secrets but it's not till near the end of the book that you discover what had happened both in the past and recently to make her runaway...

So despite expecting the storyline to be one thing and actually getting something completely different, I did really enjoy the book so would definitely recommend it to others.

I'd like to thank Sandra at Pan Macmillan for sending me a copy of this book to review.

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