The Bitches of Suburbia
by
Jane Owen
It’s my turn on the blog tour for The Bitches of Suburbia today, I am glad to introduce you to this new and exciting book written by Jane Owen.
About the Book
Nothing much ever happened on Horseshoe Lane – why should it? It was, after all, just a normal suburban backwater with the usual cross section of growing families, ageing pensioners, the occasional singleton and a brace of curtain twitchers. The arrival of celebrity couple, Heavenly and Travis, however, changes all that. This glamorous pair bring about a summer of competitive party throwing and ambitious home improvement projects that will have disastrous and completely unforeseen consequences.
Neighbours who’ve got by for years with just the occasional chat over a garden fence about the unseasonable amount of rain or the state of next door’s garden are slowly united by suspicion as a husband goes missing, a much loved cat turns up dead on a doorstep and Enid from Number Seven is found badly injured at the foot of the cliff.
Could one person be responsible for all of this? Could that person be the strange and unlikeable Hilary Jones from Number Nine? There was only going to be one way to find out and it was going to involve a lot of whiskey….
In this her wonderful follow up to ‘The Rock Star Known as Horse’, Owen’s riveting new story finds a murky side to the suburbs, a side where petty jealousies and neighbourly rivalries can escalate out of all control with calamitous results, all intricately observed with her usual dark humour firmly to the fore.
My Review
Jane Owen starts the book by painting the most eloquent picture of sleepy suburbia. Everyone can relate to at least one, if not all the characters who live on Horseshoe Lane. There is the bored housewife, eccentric single lady and a pair of swingers to name but a few. Everyone is judged from behind a pair of beautifully made to measure curtains. Imaginary points are scored for a tidy front garden and willingness to put the bins out on the right day. Pleasantries are kept to a minimum as the neighbours go about their lives, renewing and renovating in a bid to keep up and outdo each other.
That is until Heavenly Hills and her husband Travis move in and encourage the neighbours to meet socially for the first time. Of course, this leads to reciprocal gatherings and everyone is welcome…except one! Hilary Jones is different from the rest and therefore she has to go to great lengths to be accepted.
The outcome is fast-paced, funny and there is a shock around every corner. As much as I felt sorry for Hilary, she could be thoughtless and cruel at times, so my allegiance wavered frantically as the story progressed.
The characters in this book are described vividly, and although quirky, they are multi-layered and believable. All is not what it seems behind the lavish exteriors and some of the neighbours have secrets which they desperately want to remain hidden.
The humour throughout, ranges from laugh out loud moments, to a darker satire, which I found thoroughly enjoyable. Recommended for anyone who likes a character based, light read with plenty of laughs along the way.
Thank you to Rachel at @rararesources for offering me the opportunity to read and review this book.
About the Author
Jane’s first novel, Camden Girls, was published by Penguin twenty years ago and quickly became an international cult bestseller published in many languages including Japanese, Spanish,German, Hebrew, Italian and Dutch. She’d already spent many years working in the film business working alongside stars such as Christophe Lambert, Andi McDowell, Daryl Hannah and James Remar before switching to the music business and working for bands such as The Who, Robert Plant, ZZTop and many more. Eventually, even that got boring and that’s when she wrote Camden Girls.
After publication, life became interrupted by an unfortunate traffic accident and Jane moved out of London to Sussex and slowly returned to writing. Her novels don’t fit into any specific category and, frustrated by endless rejections along the lines of ‘You write beautifully but we don’t know how to sell this book’ she started self publishing. Rave reviews gave her the confidence to keep going and believe in what she was writing.
She’s still in Sussex, sharing her life with her musician partner, three horses and a dog and divides her day between writing and riding.
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