Jo Lovett - The House Swap

He needs an escape. She needs an adventure.
So why not swap lives?
When Cassie and James find each other on a home swap website, it feels meant to be. City hotshot James needs a bolthole after a relationship goes sour and Cassie needs to leave the comfort of her little island to research her new book.
Soon, James is living in Cassie’s cute but ramshackle house off the coast of Maine, and Cassie’s living in James’s super smart London penthouse. It’s the perfect solution.
Except it turns out it’s difficult to switch homes without getting involved in each other’s lives. Cassie’s unimpressed when James’s ex turns up, and James is furious when he discovers that he’s going to have to help organise Cassie’s neighbour’s eightieth birthday party.
But as the insults fly, so do the sparks, and when the time finally comes to swap back, Cassie and James find they aren’t ready to give each other up – until a shocking discovery brings the pair crashing back to reality and forces them to decide what life they really want.

Comment: I have no idea of why I added this book to the pile. Since the plot more or less resembles that movie from 2006, and I have liked another book where the use of a house was an important element, I probably was thinking along similar lines.

In this book we meet Londoner James who is caught unaware when his girlfriend - whom he believed only saw their relationship as casual - is angry when he failed to propose while in her birthday party. To escape her apparent new attempt at stalking, he house swaps with Cassie, who lives in an island in Maine, US. He thinks the swap will be practical and efficient, but when he arrives in the US he is surprised Cassie is still there, to welcome him before she leaves.

For Cassie, the change is not only a work related issue, since she does have to travel to the UK for her book promotions and research, but also a personal one. Cassie is feeling the clock ticking and she desperately wants to have a child, but she's 37 and single and is considering IVF, which she hopes she can have in the months she will stay in the UK. However, her first day doesn't start well because while James' apartment is as great as the photos, is pretty much bare, not even towels are around.

This starts an exchange of phone calls which force them to trust one another and the new place where they are staying... could it be that this is what they both needed to have a new look at life?

The premise is certainly appealing, thus why I must have wanted to read it and, for the most part, the story did fit in with what I expected if house swapping is a central plot point, but throughout the story there are certain elements that I feel might have been done a little better.

James is introduced first and he quickly learn he is quite anal and focused on what he sees as a need in life: financial security and not being emotionally involved with anyone to avoid getting hurt. As the story develops, this is clearly related to his childhood and to the death of a younger sister and how the processed those things in his head. I think this made a lot of sense in terms of explaining his behavior and attitude in life, but of course it also means some scenes paint him rather badly, such as when someone from a business his company restructured looked for James to beg for his job back. 

James is considerate but not really sympathetic and that makes him look less nice than what he should, even if it was not his direct responsibility. I also wonder why this scene existed except to press an issue, since there was never any closure to this aspect of James' work. Also, James has a very isolated, carefree life and any reader would guess he needs to see life differently and experience things that he can't control, otherwise his childhood fears would win. I think this "lesson" was rather obvious, but let is be said James did become a better person. Was is realistically portrayed? I'm still thinking about it...

Cassie has also had disappointments in life, and a terrible situation in which she miscarriaged before. Now she is older but feels her biological clock ticking and wants to have a child. She also happens to be a writer of children's books which are naturally well received - although she rarely speaks about her work -, and traveling to the UK again (she is Scottish) will not only be for one reason. Cassie is also a friendly person and quickly becomes friends with some of James' neighbors, and she can appreciate her stay in London pretty quickly.

Although not everything is easy, she and James come to an understanding and calling each other was, at first, a way to establish some rules, but soon progresses to a fun way to be in contact and the conversations become more and more personal. When they meet again, there is an obvious connection but I couldn't help thinking that while is is exactly what I expected of this story, the progress was not as smooth as it should. I can't tell if it was James' acceptance of new things so quickly, or Cassie's change of heart in relation to what the UK meant for her, but the romance was only cute, not amazing.

Then, little things such as the amount of times they both travel back and forth between the UK and the US... it seems obvious they are people in a good financial position, but it's still made to seem as if these travels could be that easily achievable. I suppose they could but this got on my nerves.

The personal worries they both have aren't solved right away, which is appreciated, but James in particular has quite a change of opinion, valid for certain, but very opposed to most of the what he claimed during the story. This means it's not necessary to be a genius to guess what happens in relation to Cassie wanting a child through IVF and now they being in love and so on...

It's not that this aspect is completely badly done, but it's rather predictable. I don't mind it exactly, but then I wish their mind frame weren't so focused on negative issues before they became friends or that their lives weren't so clearly apart. I suppose this is easily fixed, as the epilogue implied, but I think the author could have written this whole situation differently. Perhaps if the setting had only been one continent...

There are other little details I think could be better, or that didn't have to be so obviously made to look cute, which turned some scenes feel a little ridiculous, but overall this was readable and interesting enough. I also think different plot choices or an editing to show more scenes with them falling in love instead of just phone calls would have helped. Still, a good enough read.

Grade: 7/10