Guest Review: The Accidental Housemate by Sal Thomas

Cath Beckinsale is in a jam. She’s a single mum of three, with her 40th birthday in sight and a precarious hold on employment. And she can’t quite let go of her late husband Gaz, whose ashes are still in an urn on the kitchen table.

To make ends meet a student lodger seems like the perfect solution – after all, what’s one more child in the house? But when Dan flies in from the US with guitar and chest hair on display, it’s immediately clear that he’s no teenager, but someone who quickly sends life in an unexpected direction.

Review: This is the first book by this author, and I’m happy that I spotted it on my library’s website. I was attracted by its interesting title and eye-catching cover, but was unprepared for just how much I was going to enjoy the story within. Right from the first few words, I was hooked and it had my attention until the very end.

The story concerns single mother Cath Beckinsale, who is struggling to make ends meet while bringing up her three children after the death of her partner Gaz, whose ashes are sitting on the kitchen table and who she often consults. When an unscrupulous colleague gets her into trouble at work and she loses her job, Cath agrees to take in a lodger as a source of income. However, when he arrives, the lodger turns out to be not the American teenager student she was expecting, but Dan, still from the USA but more of her age group. She doesn’t take to Dan to start with, but he begins to ingratiate himself into the family and to change her life in ways she had never considered.

This is one of the funniest books I have read and would recommend it to absolutely anybody who enjoys a good laugh. Having said that, you feel it shouldn’t be so funny since there are some really serious issues in the past and along the way for Cath and her family, but some of the situations she finds herself in are just hilarious. I loved the way that handsome and laid-back Dan came along and turned everything upside down for the family like some kind of fairy godfather. This is definitely not just a standard romcom but a story with true depth and a message that it is possible to turn fortunes around, told with a good dose of humour. I can’t wait to read the next book from Sal Thomas.

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