Azur Like It - Wendy Holden

...for summer holiday reading, was Azur Like It by Wendy Holden. A No.1 Best Seller, apparently, with quite an impressive list of positives on the back cover. At 473 pages, I decided that it must be a good'en, so popped it on the counter to take away with me.

I usually only read books at night, before falling asleep, so I was a bit concerned that I may take too long to read this before my expiry date. I was right to be worried! The book ...
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The plot line was too stupid, and the pages leading up to any action dragged. The story is a tale about a young (indiscernible age but presumed to be in her early to mid twenties) female journalist, who is working on a local rag in Slackmucklethwaite, a northern village. It is called The Mercury, but 'hilariously' is known locally as The Mockery. This same joke continues through the whole book. The blurb says that the young journalist gets ... more

I was pondering what book to read in the library, and on display for summer holiday reading, was Azur Like It by Wendy Holden. A No.1 Best Seller, apparently, with quite an impressive list of positives on the back cover. At 473 pages, I decided that it must be a good'en, so popped it on the counter to take away with me.

I usually only read books at night, before falling asleep, so I was a bit concerned that I may take too long to read this before my expiry date. I was right to be worried! The book did not live up to its reputation.

The plot line was too stupid, and the pages leading up to any action dragged. The story is a tale about a young (indiscernible age but presumed to be in her early to mid twenties) female journalist, who is working on a local rag in Slackmucklethwaite, a northern village. It is called The Mercury, but 'hilariously' is known locally as The Mockery. This same joke continues through the whole book. The blurb says that the young journalist gets caught up in a dark mystery in the south of France, while covering the Cannes film festival. This is very misleading, as she is bogged down by the minutia of village life, her family, her strange work colleagues, WAGS, and a property developer with a wife with dodgy taste in interior design. This was so boring, and dragged on for over a hundred pages. I was waiting to get to the part based in the south of France. Eventually, she gets there, and it becomes even more unbelievable.

If you like a ripping yarn, that stretches the imagination, then you would like this book, but I found myself groaning while reading it. For instance, you are given a scenario, and you can tell where it is heading well before our heroine. Then, the heroine becomes aware of what is happening, and explains it in the narration for the reader, then she tells her friend, who then further tells us what has happened. But in reality, nothing is really happening. The 'dark mystery' mentioned on the cover, doesn't really get going until well over half the book has been read, and is dealt with too quickly.

The editor of this book is to blame. A good 150 pages could have been cut with no harm done. Wendy Holden also gets hooked up with introducing too many characters, and sub plots. They are reintroduced towards the end, but it seems like an after thought, as for the most part, they don't add anything to the story.

I quite liked our gullible and naïve heroine by the end, but only just. She irritated me but was the only semi-believable character in the whole book. Everyone else seemed to be a parody of a stereotype. For instance, the thick set, thick minded property developer; the camp interior designer; the WAG was like someone out of Heat magazine, and the unhappy, virtually alcoholic journalist's wife who took Kate under her wing.

The most annoying thing about the book, other than its length, was the style that it was written in towards the end. I started to feel that I was reading a Famous Five book by Enid Blyton. I am not sure if this was intentional, but it had me almost saying out like, 'lashings and lashings of lemonade!'. Or, at another point, I was thinking of Scoobydoo, and imaging the 'baddy' saying '… and if it hadn't have been for these damn kids, I would have got away with it!'.

Do I recommend this book? Well surprisingly, I would, but not to a particularly wide audience. If you are on a holiday where you will spend all your time lying on a hot, sunny beach, it would suit you. If you are a teenage girl, with a lot of time on your hands, then again, you may like it, although the plot may get too boring as a journalist and property developer, and knowing about Picasso may not be what you would want to read about.

I have had to renew my copy at the library to manage to finish just in time for the second deadline.

Note about the author:

Wendy Holden, who herself is from Yorkshire, was a journalist before turning to full time writing. She is now married and lives between two homes in London and Derbyshire, and has a baby.

The book is published by Headline, and the ISBN is 075530065
It was published in 2003.

Sorry Wendy, I was not impressed! 

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