With its lovely, girly cover of neutrals and a cosy fireplace, it’s quite obviously this book was targeted at women. Rosie Meadow Regrets… is a wonderful read, yet it is not the quintessential ‘chick lit’ novel. It’s a bit more sophisticated, thoughtful, well-written and a little less cheesy and straight forward. We are plunged straight into the meatier stuff, and by this I don’t mean gore. Rosie’s story begins with her lingering doubts about her marriage and wants to divorce her husband (ugh). Plagued by an incessant mother who harps on about prestige and marrying the wealthy, a sister who is immaculately ‘perfect’ and an unlucky love life; she married her husband but she never truly loved him. Conveniently, he dies.
From there, we witness Rosie settling down by the countryside, living a simple life in ‘recovery’. There is no real mourning as such; she’s on her journey of self discovery and understanding her life, her choices and who she is. It is nice to see her bond with the little kids, and her landlord’s helpers. It carves a story of friendship in a small town and shows that we don’t need an awful lot of flashy friends or a metropolitan lifestyle to be happy. She’s content, yet she’s still figuring out a lot of things. Like many women, she meets a man who seems convincingly promising, yet turns out to be another rat. Then, true to formula, there is another man. There always is. But this one is solid, dependable, all the gentleman and is really very likeable. There is no ‘sweeping her off her feet” or sweet summer fling, you kind of just watch their romance happen on a day to day basis. It’s a nice change because sometimes all those romantic cliches don’t truly capture the essence of love, because those whirlwind romances are fleeting and so very complicated. I’m at a point where I can appreciate the divorcee making peace with herself, with a guy in the background, then being ready for another relationship. Granted I’m not that old myself, but it’s a nice sentiment that when we make mistakes in love, it is not the end of the world, and we can still be happy in many other ways.
Towards the end, there was a lot more action with Rosie being under investigation for her husband’s convenient demise. A lot of mystery surrounds his death and events are events disrupt Rosie’s momentary peace. Admittedly, it was up to this point that I actually read the book ‘faster’ due to the pace itself. I read the first 2/3 on and off because it was easy to pick up where it left off, because it’s a slow leisurely read. Just what I needed to get back into reading. Verdict: Simple, lighthearted and enjoyable. Great for a pre-sleep read.
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