Alone in Paris - Barbara Cartland

Advantages: I read the short version
Disadvantages: Version illustrated is the long version!

...This was part of a collection that I was sent - no, I don't really know why; perhaps in the hope I would read the full version. There were three stories in the collection: this one is called Three Weeks in Paris and it’s about four women who spend – wait for it – three weeks in Paris. Exciting title, eh? Anya Sedgwick has an art school there and, for her eighty fifth birthday, invites four of her former students over. They are all reluctant to return to Paris but each has unfinished business in that romantic city. Alexa lives a successful and idyllic life in America and has a lovely man, Jack, whom she is about to marry. Allegedly. Kay, married, unable to conceive a child, lives in Scotland and has a special reason to visit someone in Paris (a “mystery man”. I twigged straight away. Will you?) She designs clothes. We get to hear about... Read review

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Advantages: You may learn how to look at yourself with different eyes.
Disadvantages: Can make you very emotional - some passages had me in tears.

...My sister, Tait Powell, got her first passport and came to England (from the USA) on the 24th of June - the reason? Well, my daughter was getting married on the 10th of July, and Tait (aged 50) came with our parents (aged 82 and 74) in order to drive them around England, Wales and Scotland during the two weeks immediately before the wedding. She shared with me, in an MSN Messenger chat just before she came, that she had wanted to visit Paris (while she was this side of the Atlantic) but that Mommy and Daddy had told her that wouldn't be possible... I thought no more of that comment - if I had even had a chance to think in the hustle and bustle of the last minute preparations - organising the coming to England of yet another sister, brother-in-law and their two youngest for the wedding. Then at the sit-down meal following... Read review

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Advantages: An excellent book by a versatile writer
Disadvantages: Some may find it a little slow-moving

...Introduction I have been quite critical of Ruth Rendell in some past reviews - her books range from the brilliant to the really bad - but I have to admit she is the most versatile of writers. I knew before I started this book that Barbara Vine was a pen-name for Ruth Rendell; had I not known, there is no way in a million years I would have guessed that this book was by the same author as the Wexford novels. I have not read any of Barbara Vine's books before, but expected something along the lines of a psychological thriller, such as those by Nicci French. What I got was a really well-written novel describing one man's efforts to write a biography of his great-grandfather, who happened to be a top physician to Queen Victoria, and who turns out to have some complicated happenings in his life. The writing is altogether of a different level... Read review

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