Tuesday 17 April 2018

Book Review - The Sunday Lunch Club by Juliet Ashton

Amazon UK
Title: The Sunday Lunch Club
Author: Juliet Ashton
Format reviewed: Paperback
Source: Publisher goody bag
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 19th April 2018
Rating: 5 Stars


The first rule of Sunday Lunch Club is … don't make any afternoon plans.

Every few Sundays, Anna and her extended family and friends get together for lunch. They talk, they laugh, they bicker, they eat too much. Sometimes the important stuff is left unsaid, other times it's said in the wrong way. 

Sitting between her ex-husband and her new lover, Anna is coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy at the age of forty. Also at the table are her ageing grandmother, her promiscuous sister, her flamboyantly gay brother and a memory too terrible to contemplate.

Until, that is, a letter arrives from the person Anna scarred all those years ago. Can Anna reconcile her painful past with her uncertain future?

Juliet Ashton weaves a story of love, friendship and community that will move you to laughter and to tears. Think Cold Feet meets David Nicholls, with a dash of the joy of Jill Mansell added for good measure.

How novel, a whole novel told in a series of Sunday lunches, I loved it.  For the Sunday Lunch club is more than just eating, its about family and friends of the family, getting together on semi-regular basis to exchange news and give each other support. 

The main focus of the book is Anna Piper and its the Piper family we really get to know, with her grandmother Dinkie,  and siblings Neil, Maeve and Josh, plus her ex husband Sam.  

Through the story we have all manner of life issues touched on, some of them very contemporary, others a bit more worrying, plus hidden secrets for all of the family members are hiding certain things from their loved ones, not necessarily huge things, but secrets nonetheless. 

I loved getting to know each and everyone of the characters and by the end of the book I felt like an honorary member of the Piper family. 

I loved how each chapter started with whose house the Sunday Lunch club was meeting in, and then the menu for the week. There were huge differences in the food each person would serve and all of the feasts matched their makers personalities really well. 

This is a loving, warm hearted book that is a pleasure to read. I can't find any fault with it, and whenever I wasn't reading it, I was wishing I had more time on my hands so I could go back between the pages and finding out what would happen next.  This is another gem from Juliet Ashton that comes highly recommended from me. 

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

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