The Bette Davis Club - Jane Lotter

Description

The morning of her niece’s wedding, Margo Just drinks a double martini and contemplates the many mistakes she’s made in her fifty-odd years of life. Spending three decades in love with a wonderful but unattainable man is pretty high up on her list of missteps, as is a long line of unsuccessful love affairs accompanied by a seemingly endless supply of delicious cocktails.

When the young bride flees—taking with her a family heirloom and leaving behind six hundred bewildered guests—her mother offers Margo fifty grand to retrieve her spoiled brat of a daughter and the invaluable property she stole. So, together with the bride’s jilted and justifiably crabby fiancé, Margo sets out in a borrowed 1955 red MG on a cross-country chase. Along the way, none of what she discovers will be quite what she expected. But it might be exactly what she’s been seeking all along.

I was drawn to this book by the title and the fact that for once the main character was in my age bracket.

I wasn't sure when I began to read it that I was going to like this book or even want to finish reading it. I kept on with it and wondered when the title of the book "The Bette Davis Club" was going to become apparent.

Then something happened - and I started to love this book. It has so many different levels to it and so many other facets than those in the synopsis. I think my turning point was when Margo pitched up in the middle of a Women's golfing tournament combined with a lesbian convention! Margo also becomes a rather clever sleuth which I loved.

The book could be seen as a light hearted one, but I felt there were some very serious subjects being broached just beneath the surface, and you could chose whether to contemplate them or just staying floating above.

Although the book did the "flipping back to past" thing - for once I was glad it did. Margo became a different person in my eyes once you saw where she had come from, and glimpsing the past that had shaped her and her friend Dottie.

Just to say that the Bette Davis Club does get explained - but don't count the pages - it takes some time to get to.

It is sad that the author is no longer with us, I am sure she would have written some more wonderful books.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars.

My thanks go to Netgalley for a free ecopy of this book to review.

Comments

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