The story revolves around Grace Soudners and Ellie Summers, both of whom discover a new friendship pretty much by chance and out of dire need for a friend. While Grace is broke and needs a lodger, Ellie who is pregnant from an ex-boyfriend, moves in with her. When the curtains fall down, Grace and Ellie discover some valuable paintings that can help Grace. But ofcourse, there are a lot of other people and issues that threaten this from happening.That's it. It is all about their life. But the problem doesn't lie there. Inspite of having read it and enjoyed a few parts, I felt frustrated and angry at the protagonist. Grace comes across as someone who makes one mistake after another and is such a doormat, repeatedly allowing people to walk over and trample her. While I think it does happen in real life, sometimes too much of it can take away the inspiration and joy that you find in a book.The plot is slow and though it could have turned out to be something much better, it simply doesn't. Not even after giving it a 100 pages.Did not work for me.
Ellie discovering she is pregnant and living with a no hoper of a boyfriend manages to befriend Grace. Grace has got divorced and is living in a mansion falling apart that was bequeathed to her from her Godmother. It makes sense that Ellie moves in with Grace and despite little furnishing or heat for that matter they form a great friendship. On discovering some old paintings in the house and a lot of dry rot the friends decide to see if the paintings are worth anything in order to pay for the treatment of the rot. Add in the men.....Flynn, the rather handsome Irish neighbour who only has eyes for Grace and Ran the restorer of art and paintings and things hot up for the friends. Into the mix add Allegra, Grace's bossy sister who inherited all the furniture from the house. Demi, Grace's step daughter and her nightmare of a mother Hermia and the novel takes on a life if it's own.Light hearted humour, love and friendship abound and a nice easy read for when concentrating is not an option.
One time is a plot, twice is coincidence, the third time would be a pattern. Thankfully Katie Fforde seems to change up the plot points somewhat In Restoring Grace. This time we have two females who have to get their lives back on track and seem to fall into each other to do just that. Grace inherited a house and much later lost her husband and has to find a way to fix up the house or at least keep some level of maintenance on it. Ellie has got her head on her shoulders, but she has a slacker, loser boyfriend and a baby on the way.Grace gets what she wants and all the happiness she deserves in this cheesy tea soaked novel.
—Rebekah
Cheesy but kind of endearing all the same, this book. It seems a recurring theme with this author, women who are sweet and complete push-overs meet someone they want to tell off all the time (but can’t figure out why they are acting like this! It's so out of character!) and that’s it, they are in love. They have come upon their soul-mate! And are living happily ever after. If this author was on to something, and being in love is just the ability to give the other person a good bollocking, then surely the divorce rate would decline to nothing.
—Tory
Hmm, I used to love Katie Fforde's writings.But this one, this one, it makes me feel draggy all over. I was thinking, when would the action happens? When will be the climax?None.Because the author keep writing and writing at a snail pace rate, that I was like.. OK, Grace's story is like THISSSSSSSSSSS, and Ellie's story is like THATTTTTTTTT.. Notice the longgggggggggg word, because I feel draggy all over. GAH!I am giving this up.. after more than 60% progressing.Seriously, this book can be jam packed to just 200 pages, not 338 pages.So basically, the plot is about restoring Grace's ancestral home and raising the money to restore it. THE END.
—Limau Nipis
