The Happy Endings Book Club by Jane Tara

Title: The Happy Endings Book Club

Author: Jane Tara

Genre: Women’s Fiction

Opening lines: ‘…Paige stared at the bottle of blood-red nail polish on the table in front of her and then turned back to her elderly mother…’

THE HAPPY ENDINGS BOOK CLUB is slightly different to the two previous books I have read by Jane Tara, ‘Forecast’ and ‘Trouble Brewing’, which concentrate solely on the magical Shakespeare women. This time the story follows the seven different women who make up The Happy Endings Book Club and how they each overcome their problem to get their happy ending. A couple of the Shakespeare women do make a cameo appearance in Paige’s story. Happy Endings is a bookshop that is owned and operated by Paige and she started the book club after her husband left her in order to make friends. The ladies she invited all liked to read romances and they all soon become firm friends and support group.

I did find that with so many characters I got a bit lost at times trying to remember what was going on with whom and how they connected to each other. Reading an e-version made it hard to flick back to refresh my memory. Having said that though I loved the stories and wished I could have spent more time with Paige (the most magical adventure); Michi (such an unusual set of parents); and Tilda who I related to most, a was a woman of a certain age who was turning invisible, a wonderfully funny twist on the phenomenon that is gaining credence among women of a certain age!

Author Jane Tara must have magical powers of her own I swear because her settings are so wonderfully described you can easily imagine yourself there. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when Jane took a character to the Christmas markets in Vienna, in falling snow, ***sigh*** is now firmly on my wish list of places to visit. From London to Australia, Paris to New York the women all eventually turn their lives around, but many it is not as they expected.

THE HAPPY ENDINGS BOOK CLUB was a book written from the heart as Jane struggled with a potential health issue of her own she put many of the problems she faced into her characters. However as I mentioned before I found it a bit of a struggle to keep up with all the characters and their stories, it was almost like a series of short stories that were threaded together with a book club as the link. This may have been because at around 200 pages there was not enough time to spend with each lady and really get to know them. But the three ladies who got a special mention were the ones I related to instantly and loved. Maybe fewer ladies or more pages would have helped me, but then I wouldn’t know which lady to leave out because even if I didn’t relate to all of them they all had an important role, so maybe more pages. Overall it is a quick romantic read, full of the Christmas spirit, some thought provoking issues and a whole heap of magic. Yes fairies do exist! I am really looking forwards to Jane’s next book HAMLET’S GHOST.

Rating: C – Above average. Was very readable and I really liked it but was easily able to put it down and walk away for a while.

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