Maybe this Time: Keep Calm and Carry On

Maybe This Time

Author Jill Mansell
Narrated by Esther Wane
Publisher: Tantor Media
Publication date Jun 4, 2019
Running time 12 hrs

I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader’s copy of this book. No remuneration was exchanged and all opinions presented herein are my own except as noted.

When Mimi Huish visits her dad at his new home in the Cotswolds, she immediately falls in love with the eccentric and charming inhabitants of his new community. And when she meets the seriously gorgeous, charismatic Cal Mathieson, Mimi begins to daydream about trading in her city life for country living. But even though Mimi and Cal feel like they might be soul mates, fate (and bad timing) keeps pulling them apart. But is there ever a perfect time for love? It’s up to Mimi, Cal, and their raucous cadre of friends to turn their happily never after into a happily ever after! https://tantor.com/maybe-this-time-jill-mansell.html

I really enjoy Jill Mansell’s books, it’s not that they’re all feel good: sometimes there are terrible people and people can go through very dark times. Indeed,the thing that sticks out the most for me in the books I have read by Mansell,  (And granted that’s not all of them), is a tragic death: often by car crash and often of a true love and always someone really lovely.  Often there is an unfair job loss, a  cheating or plain awful husband/boyfriend.  But that tragic death is the thing that marks her books in my mind.  Other than that, her stories, including this one, are hopeful, and speak to surviving those tragic losses, and letting love into one’s life again. In this case, as with some of the other stories, a growing attraction that is deferred by circumstance.

In this particular book the tragic event is particularly wide in its scope and the deferred romance is suspenseful.

Part of what I like in this book and  has been this particular, pleasantly voiced narrator who can do a variety of voices and it sounds natural.   She was a good choice to narrate this book.

I like how both main characters, and some of the secondary characters, experience growth, take on challenges, take chances, and succeed where they previously thought they could not.  Here, Mimi pushes herself to new creative adventures, and stands firm  in the face of persuasion. Cal also does something completely different that changes his life. I love how Mansell’s characters seem the epitome of that popular British phrase, “Keep Calm and Carry On.” And, they do it with, even in the light of horrible circumstance, politeness and good cheer. 

PUBLISHER: https://tantor.com/maybe-this-time-jill-mansell.html

AUDIBLE: https://www.audible.com/pd/Maybe-This-Time-Audiobook/1977332455?

AUDIOBOOKS.COM: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/9781977332455

AUTHOR: https://jillmansell.co.uk/book/maybe-this-time/