An Unsuitable Match by Joanna Trollope #Book #Review

An Unsuitable Match by Joanna Trollope

Publication date 22nd February 2018

PanMacMillan

304 pages

Book Description:
Rose Woodrowe is getting married to Tyler Masson—a wonderful, sensitive man who is head-over-heels in love with her. The only problem? This isn’t the first time for either of them. And when you marry later in life there are a lot more people to consider. Like Rose’s daughter, Laura, who remembers her mom’s first marriage and doesn’t want her to get hurt again. Or the twins, Emmy and Nat, who are used to their mom being there for them whenever and for whatever they need. And then there’s Tyler’s children: Mallory, a young actress who craves her father’s attention; and Seth, whose San Francisco bakery is just taking off and needs all the money he can get. Rose and Tyler are determined to get it right this time, but in trying to make everyone happy, can they ever be happy themselves?

My thoughts:

I am loathe to admit that Joanna Trollope has never been a big hit for me as I know she is a hugely successful author.  I liked the idea of this book, a couple in their later years finding love again and all the problems that such a relationship can create;  Families being forced into close proximity in unnatural surroundings. 
I loved Rose's character, a quietly tough cookie who had been taken for granted for many years in her first marriage. I was her personal cheerleader when her children weren't the most supportive of her decision to try and make a life with Tyler, who I felt was just too good to be true after the pompous horror of her first husband.  I found all her children to be rather spoilt in their own way and wanted to give them all a good shake.  Tyler's family wasn't much better with both of his children being selfish in the extreme.  Rose's spinster sister Prue I thought was a great character.  A stereotypical school teacher in her dress sense and attitude, she was a no nonsense, down to earth straight talker with nothing but her family's well being at heart even if she had a strange way of showing it. 
As much as I really wanted things to work out for Rose and Tyler I felt the author really portrayed well the sense of awkwardness which lurked in the background of every scene. The story could only pan out one way realistically and I was pleased that Rose had the courage to trust her gut instinct in the end.  The author could easily have gone down the happily ever after route for all the characters but I feel she took the right option plot-wise rather than the easy one.
The self-centredness of the majority of the characters spoiled what was otherwise an enjoyable story.

About the author:

Joanna Trollope Potter Curteis (aka Caroline Harvey)

Joanna Trollope was born on 9 December 1943 in her grandfather's rectory in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, England, daughter of Rosemary Hodson and Arthur George Cecil Trollope. She is the eldest of three siblings. She is a fifth-generation niece of the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope and is a cousin of the writer and broadcaster James Trollope. She was educated at Reigate County School for Girls followed by St Hugh's College, Oxford. On 14 May 1966, she married the banker David Roger William Potter, they had two daughters, Antonia and Louise, and on 1983 they divorced. In 1985, she remarried to the television dramatist Ian Curteis, and became the stepmother of two stepsons; they divorced in 2001. Today, she is a grandmother and lives on her own in London.

From 1965 to 1967, she worked at the Foreign Office. From 1967 to 1979, she was employed in a number of teaching posts before she became a writer full-time in 1980. Her novel Parson Harding's Daughter won in 1980 the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.