The Three Miss Allens

As a bit of a nit-picker, the dodgy grammar in the title of this book astonished  me, as surely it ought to be "The Three Misses Allen"?  However, to give it the benefit of the doubt, the summary sounded interesting enough and I always try to be more tolerant of any book that can rise above its failures in editing.

There are two parallel stories here set in South Australia. We have distant cousins Roma and Addy dealing with personal issues in modern days, and three sisters, Ruby, Adeline and Clara, in the 1930s.

Recently-widowed Roma escapes to Remarkable Bay where she buys a run-down guesthouse and starts to renovate it. Between jobs in the film industry, the high- octane Addy comes to help her. Along the way they get involved with two men who are also cousins, Connor and Blake. All four individuals have links to the three Misses Allen from the 1930s, who stayed at the guesthouse but whose lives were less lucky for various complex reasons.

This is pretty much a relationships soap opera, although I personally much preferred the 1930s components as they raised more moral questions about behaviour, responsibility and family duty, unlike the pity-me self-absorbed characteristics of the modern women. The nice blokes in this story deserve a medal for putting up with them and rarely rolling their "aqua-blue" eyes in exasperation!

On the more sombre side, domestic violence is, and was, a fact of life, but I dislike reading it and usually skim such passages in print. Unfortunately, I found Addy's character to be so unlikable, foul-mouthed and inconsiderate of others that she left me borderline with sympathy for her situation.

Anyhow, I did struggle to the end knowing the modern girls would happily dance off into the surf with their Chris Hemsworth look-alikes, but was disappointed that there wasn't more of tragic Clara's story which could have had a more positive outcome than it did.

There were some glaring errors with names from the 1930s story (Ruby/Roma) being mixed up with the modern one, so this again reflects on shoddy editing at the final proof stage. 

Two-and-a-half stars.

Booktopia.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

---