Since November 2009Book Review: He Loves Me Not… He Loves Me by Claudia Carroll
April 14th, 2009 by Leah
In the heart of County Kildare is Davenport Hall - a crumbling eighteenth-century mansion house, ancestral home to Portia Davenport, her beautiful younger sister Daisy and their dotty, eccentric mother, Lucasta.
Disaster strikes when their father abandons the family, cleaning them out of the little cash they had managed to hold on to. But a ray of hope appears when Steve Sullivan, an old family friend and confirmed bachelor, suggests that they allow the hall to be used as the location for a major new movie.
So Davenport Hall is taken over by the creme de la creme, including the self-centred Montana Jones, fresh out of rehab and anxious to kick-start her career, and Guy van der Post, a major sex symbol with an eye for Daisy. Throw in Ella Hepburn, Hollywood royalty and living legend, and soon there’s more sex and drama off-camera than on! And Portia, who’d completely given up on love, is in for quite a surprise… Read my review underneath…
Now I don’t usually start a review before I’ve finished a book but this is an aside that I might forget before completing the book: not being told about sequels is irritating. I hate starting a book which has a sequel when I don’t have said sequel. If it hasn’t been released I’ll read the book and then re-read after I get the sequel/sequels (a la Harry Potter - I read 1-5 then 1-5 plus 6 then 1-6 plus 7). I always check a book to see if a sequel is in the works and when I did got He Loves Me Not… He Loves Me, there was no mention of a sequel. It did however mention her second novel which IS the sequel. That irritates as it didn’t state her second novel WAS the sequel. If I’d have known I wouldn’t have started it until I had both books. Oh well, it’s water under the bridge since I have started the book. I just find it irritating not knowing, I prefer to read sequels right after I’ve read the first. Now… on to the book!
I really don’t know what I made of the book, I enjoyed it yet it was filled with so many cliches; the handsome but rubbish actor, kooky mother, leading female/male actor who don’t get on, etc. I also hated the way Portia and Daisy talked to each other - darling? - it’s such an old-fashioned word. It was definitely a soap-opera-type plot with plenty of different characters. My favourite character was Lucasta, she was hilarious and I also liked Mrs. Flanagan.
It was amusing in parts but it was pretty much a typical plot with the main character having difficulties with a man, the trouble was, unlike most plots like this (which is many, many, many) if they had just talked to each other or rather if Portia had just listened, none of it would have been a problem. Talk about jumping to conclusions! Daisy wasn’t too great a character, she just flitted between men and completely used poor Paddy.
The plot - a movie being filmed at the crumbling house - was outlandish and you would think the house would have been knocked down years ago. But despite the outlandish nature of the plot - and getting over the whole film itself - which was ridiculous and sounded so rubbish - I did enjoy reading it and did laugh out loud a few times.
As far as a debut goes it wasn’t overly impressive, when I think of some of the debut novels I’ve read (Paige Toon’s Lucy in the Sky, Lucy Dawson’s His Other Lover, Debbie Carbin’s Thanks For Nothing, Nick Maxwell - all 5/5 books). I will give Claudia another go as well as trying to find the sequel to this as well.
Rating: 2/5
Posted in 2004 releases, Book Reviews, Rating: 2/5 | No Comments »
