Tickled Pink

Christina Jones

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

When Posy planned her wedding, she assumed that she would be at the altar, not skulking in the last pew wishing premature death on the bride.

And Lola planned her happily-ever-after for 28 years. When a sudden death makes her homeless and jobless, she must leave the fancy biscuit trade without so much as a custard cream for the journey.

With radical rethinks needed, Posy and Lola have to utilise their assets or go under. But when the assets are a showman's traction engine, an ailing pub and a village full of eccentrics, the new life plan is not immediately obvious.

Christina Jones's lively, unusual country village with its maverick characters gives a vivid, frequently hilarious, sometimes poignant picture of unusual partnerships and changing small town life.

Review by Chrissi (010902) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 8/10
It was so nice to get my mitts on Christina's new novel, as I can practically guarantee a smile will appear on my chops and pretty much stay there for the duration. It is not always a cheesy grin, although they occur regularly enough, the image of Kenneth and Trevor (named for the newsreaders), rolling in gross substances is just so easily attained. We used to have a spaniel who did similar things - he would find the smelliest, greenest cow pat in the whole field and would scoot through it with it all ending up smeared in the ringlets that spaniels have on their ears. I do not envy whoever had to clean up after the real life Trevor and Kenneth.

The two ladies in our story are Posy and Lola. Posy was dumped when her long-standing boyfriend was enticed by another woman's thongs. Lola was 'another woman', whose relationship had lasted years, and who was looking forward to their retirement when they could finally be together properly. Neither, then, is very sympathetic to the plight of the other at the outset of the book.

Posy is seriously thinking of leaving the village and looking for work somewhere else. That is, until she does leave and returns because she realises that the place is not really the problem. Lola, on the other hand, finds herself having to leave her home because it turns out that it is not hers after all, it now belongs to the wife of the man she has loved for the greatest part of her life. Fate transpires to make them allies of sorts, with Posy needing to bring in some money to her family run bed and breakfast, while Lola needs to get some capital behind her and sort out her next step.

Once they have sorted out their differences, the friendship between the two women is bittersweet, with both falling for men who are ostensibly involved with other women. The woman whose thong caused all the trouble in the first place has a bit of a rocky ride of it all, but emerges at the end with her relationship with Posy's beguiled ex looking fairly doubtful, so there is a moral to the story. Cheating is not good, and cheaters can be hurt just as much as every one else involved.

The story is not really about the fallout of unsuccessful love affairs, it is about the friendships and where we can find solace with others. I thought it very nice and kind of brave when Lola and Ellis set the course for their relationship, and found it terribly sad when Tatty announced her pregnancy and it made Ellis and Lola so unhappy as he chose to do the "honourable" thing.

I suppose that because this is one of Christina Jones' stories, that you can expect a nice ending, but this one is lovely. We get to see Nell and Jack and their Memory Lane Fair again, which is wonderful, because it maintains a thread with the other books, almost like old friends that you run into at the most unexpected moments.

I have to admit that the copy I have is not a proper one, because it does not come out until September, so by the time you read this, it may be on the bookshelves of your local shop, but if you see it (there are a pair of really cool wellies on the front, you can't miss it,) and you are looking for a nice story, then read this, it really is like an evening in with an old friend.
Chrissi (1st September 2002)