Going Home
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3.3 • 16 Ratings
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- £4.49
Publisher Description
‘Fabulous… I loved it’ Sophie Kinsella
A charming, hilarious and touching story from the Sunday Times bestselling author.
Some families warm your heart. Lizzy's makes her head spin.
For most, home is a place of calm and safety. For Lizzy Walter, things are a bit more complicated. Keeper House – a cherished old place deep in the countryside – has always been the heart of the Walter's universe.
But trouble is on the horizon. Her entire family are hiding something; then just when she was starting to get over him, the Love of Her Life makes an unexpected reappearance; and now Keeper House itself is in peril.
By the time the Walters gather for a summer wedding, the stakes have never been higher – for Lizzy, for her family, and for love…
Praise for Harriet Evans
‘If you’ve yet to add Harriet Evans to your must-read list, now is a great time to start’ Daily Record
‘Harriet Evans is a master at creating characters you feel like you know inside out, and wish you could meet in real life’ Heat
‘Harriet Evans is the reigning queen of the big house family drama’ i newspaper
‘She’s as good as the great Rosamunde Pilcher’ Saga
About the author
Harriet Evans has sold over a million copies of her books. She is the author of twelve bestselling novels, most recently the Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller The Garden of Lost and Found, which won Good Housekeeping's Book of the Year. She used to work in publishing and now writes full time, when she is not being distracted by her children, other books, crafting projects, puzzles, gardening, and her much-loved collection of jumpsuits. She lives in Bath, Somerset.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This debut novel from Evans (a former editorial director at Penguin UK) opens with a late-twentysomething female British narrator and a crazy family holiday dinner, but quickly distinguishes itself from the usual Bridget Jones-esque fare. At the Walters' cozy Christmas in their crumbling countryside manor, trouble starts when Uncle Mike shows up with a blonde, buxom American wife, and normally affable Tom gets stinking drunk and declares his homosexuality. But then the big news hits: Kepper House-the aforementioned cozy manor-will have to be sold to fund one family member's shady dealings. So protagonist Lizzy Walter-a plucky Londoner nursing a broken heart and contemplating a move to L.A. as a way to leave behind painful memories-sets off on a mission to save the family home. Lizzy juggles her house-saving schemes with her romantic entanglements-she's dating the younger brother of the boy who broke her heart-but it's the familial characters like eccentric Aunt Chin and Chin's younger Australian fiance, and a mother and father ever-eager to hit the sauce that give the book life and depth. Charts (one rates the "level of weird behavior" of family members, another lists fundraising possibilities) and hyperactive capitalization (Lizzy washes "the Things that Are Too Big to Go in the Dishwasher") skew cutesy, but otherwise the story is set in solid writing that manages to be fun without dipping into dumbed-down frivolity.
Customer Reviews
Going Home
Quite simply one of the most poorly written books I have ever come across. The only reason I persevered with it was to assure myself it really was as bad as the early chapters promised it would be.
The characters are hugely derivative of the "Nottingham Hill" movie genre but without the deftness of touch. The basic plot has some promise, but simply fails to deliver. Worst of all are the excruciating editorial errors - shame on the publishers for allowing this to go to print! Had I not received the book free with a magazine, I would be asking for a refund.