A new way to be a mother (The Godmother - Carrie Adams)

Member Name: abbadabbado

Product:	The Godmother - Carrie Adams
Date:	22/05/09 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a gripping read

Disadvantages: a lot of characters

Having read the sequel to this book first by accident a few months ago, I wanted to read the Godmother so I could take myself back to the start of Tessa's story and learn what happened in the beginning. I managed to leave the two books long enough apart so I wouldn't remember what happened in The Stepmother word for word, therefore hoped it wouldn't spoil my reading of The Godmother.

In The Godmother, we meet Tessa. She is 36 and still single. Happy being single, but still single all the same. Tessa has a wide group of friends, some married, and others with children, some both. Tessa plays a great role of godmother to all her friend's children.
We come in at the start of the book with Tessa arriving back in London after being on an extended holiday. We soon learn that she doesn't have a job at the moment after having a stalker for a boss who nearly ruined her life. After taking a pay out from her company not to talk, she has taken a long holiday and is living fairly ok without work for the time being.
Back on home ground. Tessa realises it's time for her to start getting her life back together. Through the book we learn Tessa's fears and hopes, as well as intertwining with all of her friends and their lives. She realises that before when she was working all the time she never really saw her friends as much as she thought she did, and now is wondering why their lives seem so different to what she thought.

Fran and Nick have been married for 17 years, since they went to university together. They have three children and currently have a teenager about to go off the rails. We see Tessa try to be a friend to her eldest godson, with some funny and exasperating outcomes.

Ben and Sasha have been married for seven years. Ben and Tessa have always been very close, with the obligatory almost getting together scenario a couple of times. They tell each other everything, and through the book we learn a lot about what their relationship was and could be.

Helen is one of Tessa's old friends whom she met on holiday. No-one likes her new husband, and Tessa can see Helen moving towards a bad place in her life but can't do anything to stop her.

There are quite a few characters that Adams touches upon through the book, but the central focus is always on Tessa and her feelings and copings with all the situations to be dealt with. I did find there was a lot going on in this book, but despite all the dramas and tragedies, happiness and laughter, the book was surprisingly easy to read and the words flowed very easily. I found I could put this down for a few days and come back to it knowing where I was and what Tessa was up to.

As this is a prequel to the next book The Stepmother, there will be open ended questions at the end of the book, but I almost forgot about this as I was reading, and when I had finished I had to think about what happened in the sequel to realise. This is a book you can read before or after its sequel and I don't think it would ruin any enjoyment. It certainly didn't for me.
I found myself in Tessa's shoes quite a few times and wanting to move in a different direction to where Adams was taking me. For me this is a sign of a good book where I become the main character and I want to be her.

ISBN: 978-0755329540
Published: 2006

Summary: a great chick lit book