Mass-market paperback received in the mail from Lott, Texas, USA, through TitleTrader. Madeleine Wickham writes the "Shopaholic" series under the name Sophie Kinsella.

From Library Journal
Following The Tennis Party (1996), Wickham's delightful tale of entanglements examines the manners and morals of three family units in suburban London. Teachers Liz and Jonathan Chambers have a difficult adolescent daughter, two mortgages, an old home, and a new business, Silchester Tutorial College. When real estate mogul Marcus Witherstone finds tenants for the Chambers's old house, their finances improve. However, personal entanglements create problems for Liz and Marcus, as well as for 14-year-old Alice and the tenants, Piers and Ginny. While circumventing the consequences of deceit and guilt, the main characters acknowledge and rectify mistakes, thus ensuring a satisfying completion. Recommended for popular collections.

From Booklist
A nice property in Silchester is the common bond for a disparate cast of characters in this second novel by Wickham (The Tennis Party, 1996). Teachers Liz and Jonathan Chambers put the house they love on the market to finance a flagging tutorial college, for which Liz has great plans. When the house doesn't sell after months, Marcus Witherstone of Witherstone & Co. steps in, first finding tenants for a rental, then starting a relationship with Liz that goes beyond business. Fourteen-year-old Alice Chambers, longing for her old house, becomes infatuated with its new tenants, property PR woman Ginny and (especially) her actor husband, Piers, who's up for a major role in a TV soap opera. Meanwhile, Marcus participates in a fraudulent scheme while his wife, Anthea, is driven with ambition for their older son Daniel's academic future, which also is aided by Jonathan. Life may not be fair, but in Wickham's capable hands, just desserts are served in a satisfying and entertaining fashion.

From Kirkus Reviews
Though it sours a bit by the end, this British novel of manners and mores from the author of The Tennis Party charms with its easy pace and likable characters. Enthusiastic Liz Chambers convinces her docile husband Jonathan to sell their family home and purchase the local tutorial college. She hopes to turn the cozy, uninspired academy into a modern, high turn-over, high-tech prep school. Which sounds like a solid plan, if only they weren't already sinking under extensive business loans. Into their distress wanders Marcus Witherstone, an affluent estate agent who, with genuine sympathy for Liz's angered desperation, pulls some strings at the bank, arranging, among other things, for the rental of their much-mortgaged house. Explained rather blithely as just one of those things, Marcus and Liz begin an illicit affair that seems to be based not so much on passion as on mutual boredom. Ironically, their relationship is the story's least interesting element: The tense relationship Marcus has with his young, brilliant wife, and the supportive relationship of Ginny and Piers, the young couple renting Liz's house, are both more absorbing than the cliched adulterous affair. Marcus is far more interesting when he's scrambling to pull off a crooked real estate deal, or struggling with his wife to gain some influence over their young sons. Liz is also more interesting out of the hotel room, and more needed as teenage daughter Alice becomes obsessed with her friendship with Ginny and dashing husband Piers, who's an almost famous TV actor with troubles of his own. Though the story is overburdened with subplots, it's told in a conversational style that nicely strings all the characters together in an amiable, compelling way. The reader easily glides along until Liz begins engaging in happily-ever-after fantasies, scorning sweet Jonathan, and pushing Marcus too far. All in all, Wickham, though an observant and engaging storyteller, delivers a novel too melodramatic and lightweight to be particularly memorable.

Not nearly as good as Cocktails for Three. That was romance with a chicklit aftertaste; this is romance with a teen subplot. Speaking of which, Alice is only 14 but her mother, Liz, splits a bottle of wine with her. Then again, Alice has been coming home drunk on a regular basis thanks to her grownup friends Ginny, Piers & Duncan. Not that her parents care.

Liz is a self-centered greedy bitch: "She . . . looked at herself appraisingly in the mirror. Was it her imagination, or did she already give off a sight veneer of being well-to-do? Was she picking up [her lover] Marcus's confident bearing; his easy mannner with luxurious things?" All I could think of was Hyacinth Bucket! The other mother in the story, Anthea, is a jerk, too. Nothing her two (v. bright) sons ever do is good enough for her. As Jonathan (the cuckold milksop) observes after she refers to "Homer and Plato, and all those Greek gods": "He'd been told that Mrs Witherstone was frightfully clever and highbrow. But she didn't seem to have a sensible idea in her head."

RELEASE NOTES:
I left this in the customer lounges at

Perry Judd's
One Shenandoah Valley Dr.
Strasburg, VA 22657
(540) 465-3731
perryjudds.com

It's in the cupboard under the counter in which the videotapes are stored. Last time I left a book in plain sight (this was before I discovered Bookcrossing, so it wasn't labelled in any way) and they UPS-ed it back to me. So I hid this one.

Thanks for finding this book
Please write a journal entry letting all its past and future readers know that this book was found. (It's anonymous, and you don't have to join Bookcrossing to do it.) Then read and keep this book, give it to a friend, or even release it for someone else to find--just like you did. Happy reading!