A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Rumor has it by Jill Mansell, Sourcebooks Landmark, ISBN: 978-1402237508, pages 404, Price: List $14.00, Amazon: $10.08.

Jill Mansell’s Rumor Has It is hilariously funny as well as embarrassingly relevant. Tilly gets home from work to find her live-in boyfriend has moved out with all of his stuff. Not to worry, she’s not that broken up about it, except she can’t afford the rent without him. She comforts herself with a visit to her friend Erin in Roxborough. The visit is just what she needs, but before leaving to return to London, Tilly spies an ad for a Girl Friday and applies. With some assertiveness and a bacon sandwich, Tilly lands the job and moves in with Max Dineen and his daughter, Lou. Everything is going great until she falls hard for Jack Lucas who is rumored to be the hottest one-night-stand around.

Humor is very difficult to write. I know that’s the popular myth but think how often you tell a joke and everyone just stares at you waiting for the funny part — just after you’ve delivered the punch line. To write humor is to try to deliver that laugh to readers you can’t see and don’t really know. That said, Mansell’s Rumor Has It is funny. It’s laugh out loud funny. I’m sure most readers will recognize the situations because they’ve been there or seen it at one time or another. Maybe the situations weren’t as humorous at the time but, in hindsight, and happening in a book — perhaps you can see the humor this time.

Mansell’s characters are people you’ve met, been friends with, avoided like the plague, were forced to put up with, worked for, or heard about via rumors. All of the characters are well-developed and each has their own quirks. Erin doesn’t like to hurt people no matter what they do to her but she’s loyal and will defend a friend against all comers. Tilly wants romance and love but is afraid to get involved because she doesn’t want to get hurt. Stella thinks the world revolves around her and can’t understand why things aren’t going the way she planned for them to go.

I grew up in a very small town. In small towns, there’s very little to entertain one and gossip, a more sibilant word for rumor, and one that perhaps is more exact since it has that snake-hiss built in. Rumors can destroy people’s reputations and rumors can build a reputation. Remember a reputation is not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on what that reputation is and whether or not it’s true. Problems arise when the rumors don’t reflect reality. So, if you believe that everyone else is telling the truth and your experience doesn’t match the rumors would you admit to being different? Could you even convince people that the rumors are wrong? What if trying to set things right makes it look like you have a problem — would you talk about it then?

Tilly moves to Roxborough and needs to play catch up to learn what everyone else already knows. But what if, being new to the town, you don’t see things they same way. Do you go with what you believe or do you accept that the villagers know best?

Rumor Has It begins as Tilly’s story but there are several other plot lines involving other people, including Tilly’s best friend, Erin, scary Stella, Max Dineen’s ex-wife Kaye, and Max’s young daughter Lou — just to name a few. The point of view shifts to the character who can best tell the story.

It the book funny? You betcha it is. But it will also hit on a lot of other emotions as the various story lines play out and lives are disrupted and changed. Change doesn’t have to always be bad but sometimes it can get really depressing before it gets better. Love lost and love won can mean broken hearts and lives torn apart. Relationships in a small village with a very active rumor mill can be very iffy indeed.

First, I’m inclined to call Rumor Has It an old-fashioned romantic comedy updated to the present day. Many would call it Chick Lit. Whatever genre you put it in, it’s well written, funny, and relevant to people today and their relationships. Most of us have been the subject of rumors so we’ll know exactly how these characters feel.

I should mention that Rumor Has It is very British. If you watch British comedies and read books written by other UK authors, and have some knowledge of current British politics and social icons, you’ll get more of the jokes. The comedy is a bit off-the-wall, but totally believable. However, sometimes the humor is in a reference to a person, TV show, or political scandal. Don’t worry, the story is still very accessible and you’ll get most of the humor from context.

If you enjoy a good story with comedy, romance, and a bit of drama, give Jill Mansell’s Rumor Has It a try. She’s not an author I’d read before but her name is going on my “watch for this author” list.

Cowboy Trouble by Joanne Kennedy. ISBN: 978-1-4022-3668-6, 416 pages. $6.99 mass market paperback/ $4.79 Kindle edition. On sale March 2, 2010.

Libby Brown always wanted to have a farm. That was definitely impractical while working as a journalist in Atlanta — not much scope in farming on your balcony. However, when her love life goes up in flames, she decides “chickens will never break your heart” and buys a ranch and heads to Wyoming. She barely arrives before her next door (but miles away) neighbor show up to welcome her to the area. Luke Rawlins makes a fine first impression even though he’s decked out like a cliché movie cowboy. But she welcomes the help and the information and who wouldn’t want to spend time with those eyes and the dimples. There’s a lot to learn about running a ranch with a herd of chickens while holding down a job on the local paper.

She begins to meet the people of Lackaduck, Wyoming. There’s the handsome sheriff who seems very committed to his job and is definitely making an effort to get to know Libby. Luke seems to always be around and the tension between the sheriff and Luke is palpable. When Libby hears that there’s next to no crime in Lackaduck but there is an unsolved murder still on the books, her journalistic juices start to flow.

I’d never read anything by Joanne Kennedy before but she sure got my attention with Cowboy Trouble. The story moves at a snappy pace with the point of view shifting smoothly from Libby to Luke to fill in some background information and keep the reader in the information loop. The unsolved mystery drives the story as Libby uses all her skills to identify the killer or at least to turn up some new evidence in the case.

On the level of a mystery, the story is top notch. Kennedy plays fair with the reader and the clues are all there to be collected so that the reader should be able to figure out what’s going on. Of course, the fact that Libby is a bit slower than the reader just adds to the tension. We can guess what’s going to happen but no matter how much you yell at the page, Libby just does her own thing.

The book is billed as a romance and there’s definitely all the expected tropes of a romance. Kennedy has a light touch and even while ratcheting up the tension on the mystery, she keeps the romance boiling and the humor unexpected but appropriate and a welcome tension reliever. Though I must warn you that even though the sex is very low key and more vague innuendo than exactingly detail (vague is good, and Kennedy is great at this) some of those scenes sizzle so much I thought the book was going to spontaneously combust.

All in all this is one heck of a good book when you just want to put your cares on the back-burner and forget about your problems for a few hours. Libby is strong, independent, witty, and definitely not to be trifled with. Kennedy manages to write Libby as a fully developed character who doesn’t do dumb things just to move the plot along. She does occasionally do some real dumb things, but always with solid reasoning behind the acts — you could imagine if you were Libby you’d do something similar.

Reading Cowboy Trouble by Joanne Kennedy is like stepping into another world and being the proverbial fly on the wall. If you enjoy mystery, romance, or a bit of both — you’ll want to add this to your To Be Read stack (and maybe bump it to the top).

Right up front, I’ll admit that I’m a Jane Austen fan and I love searching for those books that continue the saga of the people from Austen’s novels.

The Darcys & the Bingleys continues the story begun in Pride and Prejudice. The book opens with the two couples engaged and deep in planning for their weddings, then we have the weddings, honeymoons, and the two couples settle into their married lives. Altman, knowing that this material would be a bit thin on the ground for a full novel, is actually telling us the tale of Caroline Bingley.

As those who are familiar with Pride and Prejudice are aware, Caroline Bingley has been pursuing Mr. Darcy in the hope of being Mrs. Darcy. She hoped that with her brother being Darcy’s close friend and that her being with them would make his heart grow fonder of her and offer marriage. That didn’t happen, instead Charles Bingley married Jane Bennett and Darcy married Elizabeth Bennett. Now Caroline is nearing thirty, which at that time meant she was unlikely to get a good offer of marriage, and her age was against her. She was desperate and, returning to London after the weddings, she threw herself into the social scene hoping to find a good match.

Luckily for Caroline, she does find someone who offers for her hand. Charles is called to London to meet her suitor and to give his consent. It’s at this point that the book really takes off (not that the preceding scenes of the happy couples settling into their new lives wasn’t interesting). Needless to say, Bingley and Darcy find it necessary to vet Caroline’s suitor. In the process they learn more information about the suitor, about Caroline’s life, and the Bingley children’s childhood.

Altman writes with true sensitivity to the characters as developed by Jane Austen. Never does she violate the moral code or core characterizations of any of the characters. However, Altman does allow them to grow and change with the changing relationships that result as daughters marry, women become mothers, and men become husbands and fathers, and as the new relationships by marriage settle in place. I never felt that she twisted the characters core values and attributes, but she did give them strength and growth. Jane gains a spine. Darcy and Bingley become more like brothers than close friends. Jane and Elizabeth gain confidence and find that their sisterhood becomes even more precious to them. Many things change, but at heart it all grows out of Austen’s original story.

I must mention that Altman manages to tell a taut tale while following the template laid down in the original story, being true to the times while striking out into her own territory. That she manages to do this while also injecting a bit of humor, lively wit, crisp dialogue, and outstanding adventure with a few twists and turns makes the book even more exciting.

I’ve read a number of continuation tales where the authors chose to make the plot move by having the main characters complete change their character, morals, and values. So authors who manage to continue the story while maintaining what we readers loved so much about the original characters, while telling new stories, are to be commended and recommended. Give Altman’s The Darcys and the Bingleys a try, especially if you’ve been disappointed by other continuations — I believe you’ll agree this is an excellent addition to the continuation tales.