Tag Archives: England

Aug18

Gigi, Listening by Chantel Guertin

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This was a fun book with a cool premise.

Gigi is the owner of a romance bookstore. She has a massive crush on the narrator of an audio book, Zane. His voice makes her swoon and the book he’s reading is one her parents fell in love reading, so the book has meaning to her in addition to her lust for the narrator. For her thirtieth birthday, her friends go in on a trip to England for her. (Wish I had friends like that!) A bus trip led by a tour company the narrator’s family owns and he happens to be the guide scheduled for that ten day excursion.

And the adventure begins. There’s a wonderful cast of characters who are on the bus tour as well as the bus driver and tour guide. Each character is fully fleshed out from the estranged couple, to the two women who fell in love later in life, to the widow, the older tour guide, a YouTuber, and the man who records everything and is a font of trivia knowledge.  

When Gigi arrives at the bus depot, the narrator guide, Zane, isn’t there as he’s had a family emergency. Disappointment washed over Gigi and she thought about not going on with the trip. But she stays and finds herself having fun despite no Zane. She lives in hope that he’ll turn up, but she also makes the most of the days he’s not there. It doesn’t hurt that the bus driver is witty and up for adventuring with her when she doesn’t want to follow the itinerary. She has an aversion to churches since the death of her parents and tries to avoid entering the sacred places which is difficult since the tour is called Spires, Shires, and Shores. The bus driver figures out her reluctance to be inside the churches quickly and distracts her with other activities.

When Zane, the tour guide, eventually shows up, things get more complicated for Gigi.

This was an entertaining read with lots of humor, but also some serious moments. The message in the story is about how to move on in life when you might be stagnating or not seeing opportunities in your path by being focused on the past or some dream that really won’t bring you the satisfaction you crave. Lessons are learned by Gigi as well as other characters. For example, the bus driver learns his true calling might be the very thing he avoided, the young YouTuber learns about forgiveness and moving into acceptance, and the widow learns about starting over.

The author used a lighthearted way to inject some serious life lessons into the story. I thoroughly enjoyed Gigi’s bus tour.

Sep17

Bells, Tails & Murder by Kathy Manos Penn – a Review

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I’m a big fan of cozy mysteries, especially those set in Britain. I’m also a huge animal lover so this one intrigued me from the cover and title. It was a bit of a slow start and I almost stopped reading it because nothing much was happening in the first chapters. The writing style wasn’t really up my alley either, but that’s a personal preference. Others may love it, so I’m not downgrading my review due to that.

I persevered and the story got better. One thing that bothered me was I couldn’t tell how old the heroine was. She seemed young and stylish, and men kept asking her out- ones that seemed young and also ones that seemed older- (which could really mean she’s any age—but, it was a bit confusing not to be able to picture her properly) but she kept calling herself an old lady and she took a ton of naps. Every day, she got so tired she had to nap. Her age may not matter in the grand scheme of the plot, but it stayed in the back of my mind as I read. I confess, it was distracting as she’d seem young one moment and older the next.

The Cotswold village was well-described and had all the elements one would expect, from the pub to the tea room, to the bookstore and inn. The village was peopled with an interesting cast of characters as well. The premise surrounding the murder and the author of the Peter Pan books, J.M. Barrie was clever and well done.

While I did figure out who was the red herring and who was the culprit pretty early on, I enjoyed the story as it unfolded. The added fun of the cat, Christie, and the dog, Dickens, who the heroine could understand as if they spoke English rather than barking and meowing, was a neat take on the cozy mystery genre. I liked that some of the characters had names with ties to the Peter Pan tales and the pets were named after writers.

There was lots of wine and lots of Greek salad in the book which made me hungry and I was glad the author included her father’s recipe for the salad and dressing. That was a nice surprise at the end of the book.

I’m giving it three stars for the slow start, but I recommend the reader keep going if discouraged by the lack of action at the beginning. It gets better.

Sep15

Customer Service Winners and Losers

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Piles of Money

Customer service? How about no service! I just went round and round with my credit union the other day. My son moved to England for grad school and we called the credit union ahead of time and told them he was moving and we even changed his address. This is an international credit union that does business with people all over the world.

Sure enough, he went over and the first thing he tried to buy was a cell phone over there since his wouldn’t work internationally without huge charges. Guess what? The credit union wouldn’t honor the charge and cut off his card for “suspicious activity.” WTH? Crazy.

So, I called them as I’m the joint owner of the card. They would not listen to me about the charges being okay. They wanted HIM to call- what part of “He can’t get a phone because you cut off his card” didn’t they understand? He needed credit to get the phone and they cut off his credit because he was in a foreign country. It was one of those things called a vicious circle, right?

The only way I had to communicate with him was by email. He tried to email the credit union but they ignored his request to allow the charges. It was ludicrious. I went round and round with them, finally, exasperated, I told them they needed to look at my other accounts because I was coming to take ALL OF MY MONEY out as soon as I got off work. Guess what? They took the freeze off the kid’s card. GEEZ. How crazy was all that?

I’m still debating taking the money and leaving. If I hadn’t been a customer since I was 16, I might.

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