10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A poignant look at a family situation of our times, 12 Feb 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Perfect Love (Paperback)
The problems of a modern 'step' relationship examined with depth and feeling by Elizabeth Buchan. Why hasn't this wonderful author been better publicised? I discovered her quite by chance.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good story, wrong narrator, 29 Nov 2002
By A Customer
I liked the story very much, however I wish I'd have read the book rather than listened to the storytape. The story centres upon Pru, who is married to a man 20 years her senior. Pru is very happy in her marriage (even though it is a little humdrum) until she meets her stepdaughter's husband, Jamie, who is her own age. There is an instant attraction between them and this quickly turns into lust/love as they embark into an unplanned affair. As Pru's husband, Max, begins to suspect that something is going on, Pru must choose between the sure and steady love of her husband and the uncertain future with Jamie whom she undoubtedly loves and who loves her in return.
I didn't much care for the choice of Lesley Duncan as narrator. I thought her voice too unvaried and lacking the strength required to hold my attention properly. I love talking books, but in order for them to have an impact on me, the right narrator must be chosen. Unfortunately, in this case, it wasn't to be.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting centre but too much padding and one-dimensional characters, 29 Jan 2010
This review is from: Perfect Love (Paperback)
I've never read any Buchan, put off by the pastel covers which seem appropriate for a bland, 'older' read. But the blurb attracted me and I gave this a go. At it's heart there's an interesting story of Prue, 41, happily married to Max who is 60, who meets her stepdaughter's 39 year old husband and falls in love with a passion she has never felt before.
I liked Prue and her lover James, but felt that there was an awful lot of padding that detracted from this central interest. So Prue is rather oddly writing a biography of Joan of Arc even though she has no training or education for doing this, and the book has long, extended discursions about Joan, who is supposed to be a model of the woman who follows her passions.
Similarly, the sub-story of Emmy, James' nanny was unnecessary. And the respective spouses, Max and Violet, were represented very cruelly. By making them so unnattractive, especially Violet who ticks every box of the bitchy career woman, any moral ambiguity over the issue of adultery was wiped out and the only question was how on earth did poor Prue and James ever manage to stick with their partners in the first place.
So this could have been far better than it was: tauter, more focused, and with a more generous view of people's vulnerabilitities, rather than the forced and unambiguous 'good' and 'bad' characters that we are left with.
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