Happy New Year, ForeverBookers!
Last night, I finished Pets At Primrose Cottage by Sheila Norton: Part 1. It was good. I don’t think I quite enjoyed it as much as her other serialised novel, The Vets At Hope Green because the lead female character came across as younger and more childish/immature in this part of Pets At Primrose Cottage. I have hope that she’ll grow up in the other parts.
3 Stars!
We follow Emma who used to live in America but after a scandal, she moves back home, to England. We, as the readers don’t know what happened, yet. I think this will be revealed in part 2 or 3 of this novel. She starts a pet sitting business to hide her lies to everyone, where she now lives in England.
Spoilers Below...
“Actually, I was sure it was worse for me, since I was the cause of all this fuss and attention”
This is Emma comparing her life to that of her twin sister, Kate. Emma thinks she’s the worse off in her family because of this thing that happened. She’s not living with her family because they, apparently, can’t deal with the stress of what happened to her. I’m sure this is overly dramatic, but then she seems to be one for being over dramatic so this isn’t a surprise.
“They said they were sorry I wasn’t staying, but their faces told me otherwise. They were relieved. I wasn’t the kind of daughter a family would want living with them. I was a liability"
tells us that Emma is being dramatic by saying her family doesn’t want her with them. She’d prefer to be on her own, is what she means, I think. She comes across to me as a selfish character here, because her parents didn’t tell her to go. She left because she wanted to or thought it was best. It’s like Emma wants someone to blame. I don’t like these sorts of characters. At the moment, she doesn’t have any redeeming qualities.
Emma wants to stay under the radar after what happened to her. That means that even in England she just wants to be in a quiet, little town, where nobody speaks to her. She chose the wrong town, when she chose Crickleford, in Dorset. People chat to her and want to know her business a lot. All we know is this “scandal” is something to do with her ex, who is still in America.
The pet sitting happens by accident. Emma is asked to look after the family she’s staying with cats’ while their on holiday. That’s where the title, Pets At Primrose Cottage comes from.
We don’t get any romantic twists in this part. This was kind of disappointing but I’m still interested in Emma’s story.
What did I like about Pets At Primrose Cottage, part 1?
I liked how the book is told in first person. We might get a look into why Emma is the way she is in future parts, I hope, and maybe see some redeeming qualities.
I liked the settings. I thought they were described well. I could easily picture where the characters were.
I thought the book (this part at least) was well written. I just didn’t like the main character.
What didn’t I like about Pets At Primrose Cottage, part 1?
As I said above, I didn’t like Emma’s character but I hope as we learn more about her in the other parts of the story, I’ll start to see why she’s like she is.
I didn’t like that there was no love interest. In Sheila Norton’s other novel the main love interest is introduced in the first part. I don’t think Pets At Primrose Cottage is focused so much on romance but I hope we get some, somewhere.
I technically read this in the last couple of days in December so it counts as part of my 2017 reading goal, although I’ll add it to my 2018 reading goal as I’m writing this review on January 1st, 2018.
I’ll be reading another arc next so stand by for that review in a few days...
Comments
Post a Comment