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4.5
The Man in the Needlecord Jacket, Linda MacDonaldReview from Jeannie Zelos book reviewsGenre: Romance, General Fiction,(adult). Well. I love romance, saw this and was intrigued but.....to me this Isn't Romance. Romance for me is lovers, twists, dramas, upheavals, and this book has all that but it doesn't have a HEA, or even a HFN and to me one of those is essential for a book classed as a romance read. That said it's a story I very much enjoyed, made me do a lot of that "what if" thinking, look at things from the position of each character. I hadn't read the author's other books which feature characters from this one, and maybe if I had I'd feel differently about Marianne, Ted and Felicity. I may have been more sympathetic to Felicity, when we first met her. As it is I found her strange, very out for herself. She'd left Ted to be with her lover, and yet she's irritated that he's found someone to replace her, disparaging about Marianne, irritated that she's spending time with Ted in the family home, cross when they both spend time in Marianne's London home.Then she meets Coll, and its as if she likes the attention, is flattered and is using him as a place warmer, waiting to see if she can displace Marianne and get her position back with Ted.She seemed to me very shallow, expected everything to go back as before she left to move abroad with her lover, she left without caring about them, now she's back she wants it all to carry on as if she hadn't gone, as if those months had just been a kind of limbo for everyone else.. We do see her lighter side though, and maybe her attitude is one shaped by recent events and not a true look at her.I did warm to her over time, did come to understand her better, and at the end I respected her and what she did. Sarah, I felt she really drew the short straw. Ten years "with" Coll, each having separate homes and their relationship revolving solely around what he wants.Her first husband died, when they were still deeply in love and she really wants to find that again, seemed like she had when she first met Coll. However he's slowly eroded her confidence to the position when she seems to think its OK for him to have other women, (OW she calls them) as she knows its all flirting on Coll's part, and nothing serious would come of it. Then he meets Felicity, and everything changes. Coll, I hated that man and yet I could see what he was so attractive to women. He's decent looking and cultivates an air of mystery, the Bohemian artist type, and is very careful what he says about himself and his life. What he does do so well is encourage the OWs to talk about themselves, leaving it open for him to listen carefully, to flatter, to encourage, to sympathise until they hang on his every word. He made me so angry the way he was so careful not to tell Felicity about Sarah.....I wanted to shout at Sarah "Follow him, Check his phone, ask him outright." To Felicity i wanted to say "ask more, questions why he hasn't/doesn't seem to have has a relationship since his divorce over a decade ago." But of course they don't and the story rolls on to its climax. I so felt for Sarah, she knew but was kidding herself. She realised Felicity was more than the usual Ow, a real threat this time. And Coll, he just wouldn't see what he was doing was wrong, belittled Sarah in subtle ways, didn't stop to think of how hurt she would be about what he says. All the way through he only ever looks at how events affect him, and some of the things he says to Sarah I could strangle him, choke him, I was so angry. Dammit he's a book character! How can I get so angry about one of those ;-) but I do. Testament of good writing the the world and characters that are fictional feel so real.The ending kind of soft, subdued, unfinished to me, there's not real conclusion and overall from everything I think Sarah is the one who lose most, I really felt for her. She'd done nothing but fall in love with a charismatic but shallow, selfish man. Stars: five,not a romance, but an interesting and absorbing read none-the-less. Not a rereader but a full 5* story despite that. ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers
