It's fair to say Celia Bloom lives a very beige life. She and her husband Geoff watch every penny, she dresses very sensibly, she has a job she doesn't really mind, she hasn't had her hair properly styled in forever and her main social life is with her neighbour Terri. The only things that bring her any kind of joy are her son and the plant hospital that she runs out of her house. Even that has to be contained to just one room otherwise Geoff gets upset.
When she gets invited to her best friend from school's glamourous wedding she is quite surprised. She has barely spoken to Amanda for years. Geoff won't come with her to the wedding, so she feels quite out of place.
Fast forward a few months and Celia is having a particularly bad day, as you do when you have recently caught your husband in bed with someone else in the mouldy caravan that he has inherited from his parents. When French school teacher Enzo comes knocking at her door with a particularly sick looking cactus named Spike, she turns him away, but also feels bad about that almost immediately. When she runs into Enzo again, she agrees to see if she can work out what is wrong. This is a huge relief to Enzo who can't face telling his young daughter, Matilde, that he has killed the cactus. Enzo and his ex-wife are navigating co-parenting very well, but he is struggling to get back into the dating scene.
The last thing Celia needs is Amanda inviting herself to stay for an indefinite period, without even having the energy to wonder why she would turn up out of the blue like that! For all that Amanda looks like she has everything together, she really doesn't. She has just been told that her TV job is coming to an end as they need someone younger, her toyboy husband is driving her crazy and she just needs to get away.
Amanda decides that she is going to help Celia. After all she does have experience doing makeovers on TV. With Amanda taking charge, Celia begins to live a little more taking small steps like trying a new haircut, a new fragrance, getting some new clothes and more. Soon it is more than just a cosmetic makeover, it's a life makeover.
It's funny. When the book began I saw Celia as being my own age or a bit older (which is mid to late 50s) so when it began to look as though there might be a spark of interest there it puzzled me for a moment. However when I did the maths, Enzo and Celia were much closer in age that I had remembered. I guess that is the whole point of the story. Celia was almost invisible until something happened to give her the opportunity to take a chance on a new life.
Plants are a bit part of Celia's story. It's her special gift. It's fair to say that I don't have that same gift. A while ago we had the idea to put up a vertical garden on a fence that we can see from our living room. It was going to be nice to see cascading greenery whenever we looked out. Now, we see a wall of black plastic pots and some of those got eaten when we had my stepdaughter's dog staying with us. That probably sounds dreadful but we do have a nice patch of grass that my husband takes great pride in, especially now that dog is gone and so there are no new holes being dug.
It's funny though. The next book I picked up to read was all about gardens too. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something!
I hadn't read Fiona Gibson before, and I have to say I enjoyed this book a lot. The good news is that there are lots of other books on her backlist, and quite a few of them have fun titles like this one.
I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews. Be sure to check out other stops on the tour shown below. Thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy.
Rating 4/5
The Woman Who Got Her Spark Back
Is it ever too late to bloom?
Meet Celia. Life hasn’t worked out quite how she’d planned.
Since her son left for university, Celia has felt stuck at home – battling with her husband Geoff over control of the thermostat, and without the merest glint of a social life. Her only joy comes from the plants she nurtures in her makeshift plant hospital in their Glasgow flat.
Then three unexpected things happen:
- She catches Geoff in bed with a secretary from his sausage factory (no pun intended).
- Her high-flying best friend Amanda arrives on her doorstep without warning (but with a very large suitcase).
- A tall handsome French teacher asks her to tend his daughter’s cactus back to health.
Suddenly, Celia finds her life in freefall, but she makes a decision: she won’t let this be the end of her. She’ll bring herself back to life, just like the plants she works her magic on. But just how do you change the habits of a lifetime?
Purchase Link - https://mybook.to/GotHerSparkBack
Fiona Gibson writes bestselling and brilliantly funny novels about the craziness and messiness of family life.
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This sounds like great fun!
ReplyDeleteIt was fun Deb!
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