A RACE TO THE FINISH! (Jumping to Conclusions - Christina Jones)

Member Name: Skyedame

Product:	Jumping to Conclusions - Christina Jones
Date:	15/05/07 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Village life, racing, horses, romance, lust - all life is here!

Disadvantages: None

I have to thank the ReadItSwapIt website for introducing me to Christina Jones. As an avid fan of Jilly Cooper, I think Ms Jones is probably the only female writer to come close to the Cooper style, although Ms Jones has her own voice and I mention the similarity only as a pointer for this particular book.

Perhaps it was the setting of the story: an English country village peopled with middle-class folk and the occasional romp between beautiful people. The tale is horse-orientated too (remember ‘Riders’?) which I will explain later.

I was attracted to Jumping to Conclusions because I love books and bookshops. The story starts with Jemima Carlisle who leaves her London publishing job to open a bookshop in the village of Milton St John.

The book’s blurb, with the enticing words ‘….Jemima has scarcely stocked up her shelves before she’s embroiled in sharing secrets, supermodel shenanigans and stable skulduggery. Her shop becomes the focus of the village hit-squad….’ had me hooked.

Initially, I failed to notice the words ‘stable skulduggery’ and was a little worried to discover that the bulk of the tale revolves around riding stables, horse-racing, jockeys and trainers. Never having had a pony or been to the races and because horse racing really goes straight over my pretty little head I was sure I picked a bummer with this book.

I needn’t have worried, the tale was gripping in the ‘racy’ parts and the skulduggery was intriguing. I was amazed at how many things you can do to ‘fix’ a race.

Jemima and her bookshop is essentially one of the meeting places for friends and neighbours in the community. Every story has to have a central meeting place to gather people together. The ‘meat’ of the story concerns two stables in the area, the people who run them or work there and how the rest of the community – the beautiful people and the small-town eccentrics - is drawn into the sub-plots, secrets and twists .

At no point did I feel I was being given a guided tour of the world of horses racing. It was simply told with the humans in the story given top billing, but I confess I was routing for the two village horses who were Grand National favourites and whose futures depended very much on the success or failure of the goodies and baddies.

The story tells of secrets, tempestuous affairs, scams, vices and love. It is mostly warm and light-hearted with lots of engaging humour and the characters are real and interesting.

Some of the characters were introduced in a previous novel called Going the Distance but I haven’t read that. I can say that Jumping to Conclusions can be enjoyed without reading the previous book but I enjoyed it so much I am in the process of ensuring I read all of Ms Green’s books to date.

It took me only two days to finish this book's 502 pages. Highly recommended for a good read with great characters.

ISBN: 0006513433

Retails at £6.99 but can be found cheaper on Amazon

© Louise Saunders 2007

Summary: Entertaining read with great characters