Today I am excited to share my review of The Single Mum's Mansion with you as part of the blog tour. You can find information about the author and the buy links if you scroll down the post. Don't forget to visit the other stops on the tour for more exclusive content and reviews!
Amanda Wilkie unexpectedly finds herself alone with
three children under five in a rambling Victorian house in London, after her
husband walks leaves them claiming he’s just ‘lost the love’, like one might carelessly
lose a glove.
A few months
later, Amanda’s heavily pregnant friend, Ali, crashes into her kitchen
announcing her partner is also about to abscond. Once Ali's baby Grace is born,
Amanda encourages them to move in. When Jacqui, a long-lost friend and fellow
single mum, starts dropping by daily, the household is complete.
Getting
divorced is no walk in the park, but the three friends refuse to be defined by
it. And, as they slowly emerge out of the wreckage like a trio of sequin-clad
Gloria Gaynors singing ‘I Will Survive’, they realise that anything
is possible. Even loving again…
Review: I love the premise behind this book and the overarching storyline was fun. It is also incredibly feminist and involves very strong women as the song goes 'sisters doing it for themselves'. I enjoyed getting to know main character Amanda and her three children. Her friend Ali and her daughter Grace and their other friend Jacqui. There are also a whole host of other supporting characters, some of whom were hard to keep track of because I didn't quite know how they fitted into the lives of our main characters or because they had similar names.
There are definitely parts of this novel that show the darker side of divorce and being a single parent and we live through a whole host of emotions that Amanda lives through. There are trigger warnings here for miscarriage and also unwanted pregnancies so just be warned of that before going in. As I say I enjoyed the overarching storyline about women sticking together and supporting each other in times of trouble. Amanda also gets into alternative healing as the book progresses and here's where I had some issues. Some of the things that she goes in for just seemed a little out of character for her and she and her friends refer to the books and the therapies that she uses as 'beardy weirdy' which I also thought was out of character for her and could also cause offense to others. I thought that this side of the novel felt a little detached from the rest of it.
As well as getting to see the highs and lows of living the single parent life and going through a divorce, we also get to see what happens when mums let their hair down. There is quite a bit of drinking and drug use in the novel which did shock me a little and again seems a little out of character for some of the mums in this book. There are hangovers galore and the emotional roller coasters that go with 'the morning after'. I did enjoy the premise behind this book and what it does to promote strong women supporting each other. I enjoyed the fact that it revolves around three amazing mums holding their own in the big bad world, but I did have a few issues with it.
To order your copy and see for yourself, just click here!
About the author
Janet Hoggarth has worked on a chicken farm, as a bookseller, children’s book editor and DJ with her best friend (under the name of Whitney and Britney). She has published several children’s books, the most recent ones written under the pseudonym of Jess Bright. Her first adult novel, The Single Mums’ Mansion is based on her experiences of living communally as a single parent.
Follow Janet
Twitter: @janethauthor
Facebook: @JanetHoggarthAuthor
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Website: www.ariafiction.com
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