Esme Cahill Fails Spectacularly
This was a fun little book to read. Not my norm, but I really, REALLY needed light and fluffy to get over the previous book (Death and Judgement by Donna Leon). This did the trick for sure.
Esme Cahill gets fired from her New York publishing job, divorced from her husband, and then her grandmother dies. The same grandmother that she hasn’t seen nearly enough in recent years. She ends up traveling down to Asheville, NC to visit her grandfather where she discovers he is about to lose the family business - a lakeside retreat. Of course she stays to help get that back going well, and as she does she discovers more about her late grandmother’s life and legacy. Throw in some romance, a then and now storyline, and even a connection to Biltmore and you have a lovely story that shows that ‘failure’ isn’t always what you think. I thoroughly enjoyed this and rated it 4 stars.
Because of the above fun book, I later chose to read The Restoration of Celia Fairchild. I ended up not finishing it. Not because I didn’t like the book, per se, but things got busy and it just didn’t draw me back. I felt like I already knew the general storyline from reading the Esme Cahill book. This one was about a a young woman, Celia, who loses her job, her husband and then returns to Charleston, SC (another southern city of renown) following the death of her Aunt Calpurnia, who she hadn’t seen nearly enough in recent years. (see what I mean about same storyline?) Add in her decision to stay and restore the home her Aunt left to her, a bit of romance, and what I am quite sure was a lovely and light resolution, complete with some romance and newfound confident identity, and I just felt like I had ‘been there, done that.’ So not a bad book, just too much the same book as one I had already read. I rated it 3 stars for being a pleasant diversion, anyway.
I much prefer an author who writes 'different' stories, not all of the same type. Amy Harmon is an author who comes to mind. I really enjoy her books and they are NOT the same plot-line over and over like a Hallmark movie.
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