Chick Lit Classics: Paradise Fields by Katie Fforde
Posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 by Leah
Chick Lit Classics is a new feature on Chick Lit Reviews where we highlight the books we feel are classics of the chick lit genre. Feel free to discuss our choices in the comments section!
This week I’ve picked one of Katie Fforde’s book for our Classic choice this week. I’m a huge fan of Katie’s work and have read - and enjoyed - the majority of her books and I’m eagerly awaiting her new one. One of my absolute favourite’s of Katie’s though is Paradise Fields. It’s one of the first I read of Katie’s and since reading it the first time, I’ve since re-read it and I enjoyed it just as much. It has humour and has life and most importantly it has romance!
It’s not as if Nel hadn’t enough on her plate already: organising a farmers’ market in the picturesque Paradise Fields and keeping track of her unnervingly beautiful teenage daughter - plus sorting out a houseful of animals - are quite enough to keep her busy. The last thing she needs is another complication in her life, but when her old friend Sir Gerald dies and his son, Pierce - accompanied by his glamorous American wife - takes possession of The Big House, it seems that preserving the Fields is not on his list of priorities.
Nel takes up arms, determined to fight for the meadow and the market she loves. But whom can she trust? She’s pretty sure her friends Sacha and Vivian are on her side, but her sensible boyfriend Simon, an estate agent, is less encouraging. And then there’s Jake, the exasperating yet attractive stranger who kissed her under the mistletoe. Maybe she’s been a not-so-merry widow for far too long…







It is an absolute must-read!
Holly Colshannon is a young journalist who thinks her career is about to take a terminal nosedive when she is moved from covering ‘pet deaths’ for her local Bristol paper and made Crime Correspondent - a poisoned chalice if ever there was one. However, a brilliant idea from the new police PR officer sees Holly shadowing a detective and writing a diary column about his working life. Detective James Sabine is bit of a sour puss - although he does have very nice green eyes - and he’s furious that he has been landed with magnificently accident-prone Holly especially since her arrival comes six weeks before his wedding to faultless Fleur. Holly, however, has a career to think about and this infuriating man is not going to stand in her way. Meanwhile, her bosses at the newspaper realise that the column is proving extremely popular with the readers who are waiting for something romantic to happen between the handsome detective and the nice young reporter. With only days to go to the wedding Holly realises she’s been waiting for the same thing…
Meet Rebecca Bloomwood. She’s a journalist. She spends her working life telling others how to manage their money. She spends her leisure time …shopping. Retail therapy is the answer to all her problems. She knows she should stop, but she can’t. She tries Cutting Back, she tries Making More Money. But neither seems to work. The stories she concocts become more and more fantastic as she tries to untangle her increasingly dire financial difficulties. Her only comfort is to buy herself something - just a little something …Can Becky ever escape from this dream world, find true love, and regain the use of her Switch card? Confessions of a Shopaholic …the perfect pick me up for when it’s all hanging in the (bank) balance.



