A Patchwork Family: Curl up with the uplifting and romantic book from Cathy Bramley

To be honest I was left underwhelmed with this story and I was really disappointed overall in the story progression, particularly as I usually love me a Cathy Bramley read. It just somehow felt like I knew the plot already and just different character names had been slapped on. Even worse I found our main protagonist, Gina, to be really, really annoying. There was an attempt to make her feel realistic but she was just too"good" for my taste, not enough light and shade to the character and she bacme increasingly more and more cloying. I cannot remember the names of any of the characters - which is never a good sign. All I do remember is that The Evergreens houses two elderly ladies and an elderly man and when the owner (one of the ladies) passes away it becomes apparent that her family just aren't interested in the house and the other two are going to be put out on the street, as is Gina as her cottage belongs to them now too. The most interesting thing for me was the fact that the two old ladies were in a romantic relationship and had been for many years and were now planning to marry. Bit of a sop to modern life in some ways and I am sure this would have shocked some of Ms Bramley's readerhsip and seen as scandalous. Personally I loved the hint of stepping away from a "traditional" male/female romantic relationship. That is all I loved about the book though. The rest of it is either verging on ridiculous (the attempts to block the house sale) or just so much blah, read it before. This review has been a long time coming. I actually read this book between the 5th and 8th May 2020 so my memory is a bit foggy about all the plot lines. Fortunately, I have a notebook where I jot some initial thoughts on the book and an overall ranking so between the book blurb and that I did have a reasonable handle on what I thought at the time of reading.

An amazing story that tugs at your heart strings. The saddest thing was finishing it!