Hoping for Hope - Lucy Clare

...I liked, I decided that Hoping for Hope sounded different to the usual books I would read so that is the one I read first.

Liddy Claver is sure that her weight gain and fatigue are symptoms of the menopause, after all she's about to turn 50 but she decides to check it out with her doctor. But Liddy gets the shock of her life when her doctor informs her it isn't the menopause - she's pregnant, and due in just 2 months. Liddy is horrified ...
...she's not ready to be a mum again. Not to mention the fact her and husband Martin haven't been intimate in five years and it can't be his baby... Can Liddy tell her family her shocking secret and keep them all together? Or is Hope too much for Martin and his children?

There seems to be an influx of books into the market at the moment based around young career women finding out they are pregnant and how it is going to change their lives, ... more

Even though I have a huge pile of books in my bedroom waiting to be read, I can't resist accepting the big piles of books my mum brings me everytime she comes to visit me! When she came last month for my birthday, she brought with her another 4 books, 2 of which were by the author Lucy Clare, whom I hadn't heard of before. After browsing the back of the books to see which I liked, I decided that Hoping for Hope sounded different to the usual books I would read so that is the one I read first.

Liddy Claver is sure that her weight gain and fatigue are symptoms of the menopause, after all she's about to turn 50 but she decides to check it out with her doctor. But Liddy gets the shock of her life when her doctor informs her it isn't the menopause - she's pregnant, and due in just 2 months. Liddy is horrified - she's got 3 grown up children and 3 grand-children, she's not ready to be a mum again. Not to mention the fact her and husband Martin haven't been intimate in five years and it can't be his baby... Can Liddy tell her family her shocking secret and keep them all together? Or is Hope too much for Martin and his children?

There seems to be an influx of books into the market at the moment based around young career women finding out they are pregnant and how it is going to change their lives, and although these are good, the storyline can only be done so many times before it becomes boring. So it was refreshing that this book offered a twist on the unexpected pregnancy storyline, and it is one that I haven't seen before in books. As well as the relationship between husband and wife, I was curious to see how the author would make the elder children react to their mother becoming a new mother again at the age of 50!

As mentioned, Liddy turned 50 just after finding out she was expecting her fourth child, so no-one would have expected Liddy to be pregnant again. Liddy was a lovely character and one I immediately warmed to despite her misgivings and wrong-doings in life! Lucy Clare has really written a realistic character who experiences all the emotions you'd expect someone in that situation to go through - shock, denial, guilt and finally acceptance. Liddy's attitude is refreshing, she makes clear that she doesn't want to be a mum again but as it is for all us mums, life takes over and things happen which keep Liddy on her toes despite her condition.

As well as Liddy's reaction, the author has superbly written the reactions of Liddy's 3 grow-up children and her husband as well, which adds a great element to the book. Laura is married to a farmer and has 3 children, one of whom has Downs Syndrome and is horrified her mother has had another baby. Miranda never wants her own children with partner Richard, and consquently the couple aren't getting on, but Miranda is completely disgusted at her mother's action. Finally, gay son Alex is settled with Mungo and more accepting of his mum and her new daughter but clearly has his own ideas about what will happen to Hope. It is nice to see the author hasn't made the book sickly sweet, making everyone coo over the new baby, instead choosing to make them resent Hope and feel disgust at their own mother for being a woman. Martin, Liddy's husband is a horrid character and although he is not a nice person, it is easy to understand why he has reacted so strongly, yet at the same time I immensely disliked him because he was such a hypocrite! Each of the characters are just as important as Liddy and this allowed the reader to really experience the life of the Claver family fully.

The book is written in the third person, and mainly follows Liddy around both at home and at the elderley's Aunts house she chooses to visit. This narrative is also regularly interspersed with the lives of Liddy's 3 children and their own experiences at home and after the birth of Hope as well. This gives you a deep insight into the lives of all the family involved, and helps you to understand why they all react as they do when they find about their mother and new sister. The author has created real individual characters here, who just happen to be related and this is what really worked for me in the book. They were so different yet ultimately the same, and they were so well-written I felt for them all. It is a really good read, not an overly happy one but it is a realistic book, with stories of love, life and relationships and how fragile these things are to us, and how family should always come first. It isn't a long book but the story is so involving you won't want to put it down. It was a fantastic read, and a great spin on the usual pregnancy stories you seem to get these days.

ISBN: 978-0751531572. Published by Time Warner Paperbacks in September 2001. The paperback contains 275 pages, and is available on Amazon for £5.69, or free from your local library! Lucy Clare is the writing name of Lucy Clare Woolley, and she has written one more novel, Breaking The Trust (2002).

Thank you for reading

Criteria are for a paperback book, not an audio book. 

...less