Happy Hour

Fact: Author Anne Mitchell won a writing competition when she was only six years of age.

Fact: Ann recently completed a masters in creative writing,

HAPPY HOUR

BLURB: What if your husband had an affair with a beautiful actress?

What if you were blackmailed into impersonating someone else on primetime TV?

What if your beloved twelve year old son suddenly disappeared?

What if you fell hopelessly in love with someone you definitely shouldn’t have fallen in love with?

Could you ever be happy again?

Jane Anderson has always been happy for her husband Paul, a handsome garden designer, to take the spotlight while she looks after their son Jeremy. But when Paul wins a gold medal at the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show, he catches the eye of glamour-puss Elizabeth – and it’s not just his horticultural skills she’s interested in. Jane’s oldest friend Susie invites her to New York for a little therapeutic shopping and sightseeing, but in Manhattan Jane finds she bears an amazing likeness to TV's Rosie Reynolds, ultra-glamorous host of the popular news and talk show Happy Hour, and that's when her troubles really begin. After Rosie’s botched face-lift Jane is offered the job of emergency stand-in on Happy Hour. But here she meets Lou, a dangerously charming man who also happens to be Rosie’s husband... For Jane, it’s the hour of truth.


Review:  This book makes for very easy reading but then good writing always does. Jane, of course was the character I most identified with but all of the characters are likable and for the most part they read true. I think I guessed how things were going to work out by the half way point, but by then it didn't really matter because I was hooked.

A great read...Happy Hour will provide many happy hours of reading.

Reviewed by Lisa

Brokenclaw

Fact - John Gardner wrote more James Bond novels than Ian Fleming himself.

Fact - Each of Gardner's Bond novels was a bestseller.

Fact - Gardner's Bond books have been long out of print, but are now back in E-book and print.

Blurb: On holiday in Victoria, British Columbia, Bond becomes intrigued Lee Fu-Chu, a half-Blackfoot, half-Chinese philanthropist who is known as "Brokenclaw" because of a deformed hand.
On his return to the UK Bond is tasked to investigate the kidnapping of several scientists who have been working on a new submarine detection system. It becomes clear that Brokenclaw is behind the kidnapping and worse, he has a devastating plan to cause economic meltdown through the collapse of the dollar.Bond has no choice but to enter his lair ...


Review: When John Gardner first took over the pen of Ian Fleming,I went with him and enjoyed his first Bond novel, Licence Renewed.Subsequent novels were  hit and miss and some were good, some were bad and one or two were very good. The strange thing with Brokenclaw ist that I remember loving it, but upon rereading it now I found it rather bland. There are some good moments but the author seems to have been bored with the series and there is little if any real characterization, which made  the book boring.

I didn't really like this one.

Reviewed by Steve