Sleeping Arrangements

Anticlimactic would be too good of a word to call it. Just as the main conflict gets good, reaching the peek of it's tension it didn't just fall flat it plummeted. There's other things such as the oldest son and the nanny but those things would need spoiling.

Chloe is just about ready to pull her hair out, so her family's Spanish vacation is coming at a perfect time. She, her partner Philip, and her two kids, Sam and Nat, desperately need the time away, so she's thankful that her old friend Gerard has offered them his villa. All of a sudden a little unsettled about the fact that she and Philip have been together for years but never gotten married, Chloe wants to use the trip to figure out what their relationship means. Philip needs to stop worrying about work and just relax, but it's hard knowing that your bank has just been bought out by a bigger company and no one knows yet who will be fired. Hugh Stratton is looking for the chance to finally get to know his two young daughters, Octavia and Beatrice. He needs a break from his busy job at a large conglomerate bank. His wife, Amanda, just needs to calm down and de-stress. She feels like a single mother and is quite the control freak, keeping tabs on the staff remodeling her house while they're gone. She's even hired a nanny, Jenna, to watch the girls so that she and Hugh can have some quality time alone. The Strattons have just managed to find the villa and settle down and relax when strangers drive up to the door, claiming that it's their villa. It could be a simple mistake, except they all know Gerard. They decide that the only thing to do is to try to fit all nine of them in the house. It's big enough, physically, but it can barely contain all of the personalities inside. It wouldn't be all that awful to share a vacation with another family, except no one knows that Chloe and Hugh have a history together. As they're grappling with what being back together means, Chloe's 16-year-old son Sam is smitten with Jenna, whose attempts at relaxing everyone ("Stocking up on the old cigarettes and booze. Joke!") just makes them even more tense. Then another connection between the two families surfaces --- this time between the men. Both families are more and more annoyed, and the couples are oblivious to the kids and Jenna learning that maybe this wasn't a mistake after all. SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS is an entertaining romp akin to any comedy of manners. If Shakespeare lived now and dealt with children, nannies, vacations and layoffs, he'd be proud. There's just enough comedy and romance to make this book about a vacation a perfect vacation read. Or beach read. Or weekend read. Wickham, who also writes as Sophie Kinsella, is an old pro at comedic tales that surpass the normal boundaries of chick lit. The story and its characters are lovable and dimensional. Everyone in it is grounded and human, and no one walks into the story with a Cinderella life that can't be explained. These are all people with complicated histories, which do even more for the relationships they have and develop with the others. Love and marriage, sang Frank Sinatra, go together like a horse and carriage. But it's much more complicated than that, says Wickham. Her novel shows us the many

This book was a little rough to start, had no idea what to expect, While I love all her writings... this one didn't seem like my style of reading...boy was I wrong! I couldn't put it down after chapter 2! Very Good!!

Each new release by Madeleine Wickham (or Sophie Kinsella, for that matter) excites me to no end. I have read nearly all of her novels and have never been disappointed. Although this one ends differently than I anticipated, I still had a hard time putting it down, just like all the others. Can't wait for the next one!

I was surprised a bit by this book, in that I was expecting a very Shopaholic type of story since this is the same author for those books as well (though she writes under a different name, Sophie Kinsella). Instead, I got a story that was a lot more family and relationship oriented, which is not a bad thing at all. Just different. Despite this surprise, I really enjoyed what I read, and the story is a very funny romp about a summer vacation gone awry. It is a great summer beach book and will make you chuckle quite a bit. Just don't expect to get a Shopaholic like story from it! I would recommend it.

Winsome is the best word to describe this book...it is a breezy, delightful story about domestic troubles and the allure of past romance. If you liked any of the Sophie Kinsella books, you will want to read this one. It's the same author!!!