Shire Hell (Paperback)

by Rachel Johnson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (UK) (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141038454
• ISBN-13: 978-0141038452
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,423,758 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Plus ça change ..., September 11, 2008

By	Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Shire Hell (Paperback)

Mimi and Ralph Fleming have sold their house in Notting Hill and moved to Honeyborne in West Dorset. The population of that village is made up of a few people - gentry and lesser folk - who have lived there for ages and of a number of wealthy newcomers. The latter in particular bring with them all the competitive attempts at one-upmanship that characterized them in Town; and Mimi, ever fashion-conscious, now has to learn what is fashionable in the countryside. There is a lot about horses and horsy women, and a nice extended set-piece description of a country house shooting party.

Rachel Johnson ploughs much the same furrow as she did in her previous novel, Notting Hell. If you were amused by the recounting of what is chic in Notting Hill, you will be amused by this novel also; but if, like me, you wearied a little of this relentlessly sustained theme by the time you came to the end of the former book (see my review), your heart may sink a little at more of the same here. In Notting Hell there were some hilarious situations which made me laugh; but in this book, though it has some intricate plotting, the comedy of manners is not - at least in my opinion - matched by comic situations. It seemed to me that the author was for long stretches somewhat on autopilot. As in the last book, we have alternating female narratives: one by Mimi and the other by Rose, the only companionable friend and confidant Mimi has been able to make in Honeyborne. The situations are similar also: in Notting Hell a wealthy American outraged the other residents of the garden square by erecting an intrusive `garage'; in Shire Hell a (somewhat) impoverished local landowner plans to erect a huge wind-turbine on a beautiful hill-top, for which he will collect a handsome sum from an electricity company. There are the same erotically-described infidelities, though in the countryside this is apparently so natural that it is not a subject for gossip and side-taking as it was in Notting Hill, and husbands have to put up with it because, apparently, divorce puts you out of the loop in the countryside. Clare, whose narrative had alternated with Mimi's in Notting Hell, makes her appearance and towards the end fruitfully ties the two books together. Just how fruitfully emerges at the very end; but, in between, Rachel Johnson inserts a sensational revelation which, contrary to the notion that in a village community everyone knows what everyone else has been up without that being a subject of gossip, does create a buzz.

Mimi is involved in one heart-felt situation, and in the end I did rather like her.