Review: Tumbledown Manor

Tumbledown Manor by Helen Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

TUMBLEDOWN MANOR
BY
Helen Brown
I have come to love reading fiction by Australian authors. Tumbledown Manor by Helen Brown is a contemporary romance that takes place in Australia is another delight for the palette. It was a combination of romance, mystery, and just plain fun as I worked my way through the pages and watched an Australian who had transplanted to NYC suddenly find herself divorced and headed back home to Australia.
The many foilable situations that she found herself in while working through just about everything life could throw at her kept her hopping almost as much as the local wildlife in the outback where she decided to buy the old family homeplace (mansion) that was up for sale and falling into ruin.
What can you say, when you are recovering from cancer, your husband leaves breastless you for "big-tits", you move to Australia to be near your homosexual son and his latest beau (but can't figure out who it is), your sister wants to run your life for you (now that you are back home), and your anorexic daughter out in L.A. won't talk to you?
Well, for starters, you buy an old haunted mansion that is on its last legs and hired some local bums to start fixing it up. All this, while you are trying to get your next book finished and off to the publisher before the deadline gets here.
Helen manages to take this seeming pile of impossible and turn it into a rock and rolling story that kept this reviewer laughing, even when things didn't look so good. Her writing style made you want to strive to keep going, even when the wildfire was headed to burn down everything you owned and had worked on. Even when the town didn't talk to you and the local librarian didn't have anything good to say about your national bestseller. You were just too busy to stop and feel sorry for yourself. You wanted to find answers to the questions that kept popping up.
In short, I loved this piece. It was great fun. A great read! It earned its FOUR STARS.
Tumbledown Manor was provided to Blogging Under the Shade Tree in exchange for a fair and honest review of the material by Net Galley.


View all my reviews