Katie Fforde - Living Dangerously

Polly Cameron is happy being thirty-five and celibate, living in a small Gloucestershire town with a possessive cat for company and a Rayburn for comfort. After all, a relationship would only complicate things ...
But Polly's life is already complicated. In addition to her job in the Whole Nut cafe and her part in the 'Save Our High Street' campaign, there's her pottery career to get off the ground. Not to mention dodging the efforts of her friends and mother to find her a husband ...
 
Comment: This is another book by Katie Fforde I had to read. I've had read Wedding Season last year and it was interesting but not amazing and I didn't think to keep up reading the author. However, I did have a second novel in my TBR list and despite not being as thrilled as that to read it I always kept in mind I would read it, more so to just get it out of the way. I wasn't expecting much and the beginning was a bit too boring, but then...

This is the story of Polly Cameron. She's 35 and single, she works in a café, she has her work as a potter when she has the time and she wants to help her neighborhood to preserve older building with lots of history. She is also trying to dodge other people's ideas about her needing a husband, which she doesn't because she is a believer of women's independence an celibacy.

I have to say I was quite surprised by how I liked this novel. It wasn't as boring as the other one I've read by the author and somehow the story seemed much more interesting and easy to follow. At least I wanted to know what would happen next...and it did have subjects I enjoyed seeing.

First of all, I liked Polly's personality. I thought she might be a silly woman that I saw often in some more oriented chick lit previous reads or the colder attitude of some British female characters as well. Thankfully, I was wrong and Polly has a refreshing personality for a woman of 35 and living a not very demanding life. Polly has a job as a waitress, mainly. She is good at it but it certainly isn't glamorous like the occupations some of the women she knows have. She has what many call a hobby but for her it's a true identity, she is a potter and her biggest dream is to do it full time. She is someone not eager to marry or to have social status. I liked this a lot because she wasn't an empty brain or sex crazed, something I find boring and tiresome in women's fiction or chick lit or contemporaries nowadays. I was very glad to see Polly as someone I could be like.

The action starts when Polly is at a fancy dinner and a old friend who she recently has met again after many years tries to impose her at David, a widower who seems more captivated by the most beautiful - married - woman in the room. Polly dislikes him and realize he feeling is mutual but she goes through it out of respect. Then later she just leaves the house because she can't stand the environment anymore as she feels she doesn't have much in common with others. From then on, we see Polly meeting most of the characters from the dinner in other occasions and in th end of the book Polly has gained a lot and still maintaining her values, ideas and identity. I liked her interactions with everyone, from her mother to Melissa, her vain friend.
The plot was simple but it was presented in a way I enjoyed. It helped that Polly never changed her personality even when her feelings were changing. I liked her and the romance a lot. Things too their time and it all felt more believable.

The writing is still very culturally obvious, as the writer is clearly British and it shows. Many details are hard to miss for the cultural differences opposed the usual American style are in evidence. Nevertheless, I had no problem following and it was better inserted in the tet than it was in the other book I've read, at least I had that notion.

So far, I've read two books by the author and this one was a positive surprise. I have doubts about trying more and ruining my experience with this one but...risks are meant to be taken and in the future who knows if I'll be in the mood to buy another and try...