Ok, but not gripping ( )

Charlotte buys a house in the small village where her sister lives. Romance blooms, perhaps inevitably, after misunderstandings and heart-searching attempts to overcome issues from the past.

It's a good plot with several minor sub-plots, and believable, likeable people on the whole. I found the minor characters a bit stereotyped, but it helped to keep them memorable. A pleasant light read with a fairly predictable ending.

Apparently this was the author's debut novel, although I wouldn't have guessed. I first read it in 2000. and enjoyed it on re-reading in 2008 too, having entirely forgotten what the book was about; the same was true on re-reading again in 2023. Difficult to put down once started.

Latest full review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-breath-of-fresh-air-by-erica-jame... ( )

I enjoy Erica James's books for the characters -- I like how even the ones who at first seem like stereotypes or caricatures will, by the end of the book, be shown to have other aspects and hidden traits; for the scenery -- she loves the county of Cheshire and describes it in a way that makes me want to move there, and also appreciates other parts of England and Europe as well; and for the guaranteed happy ending, not always a given in other types of fiction.

A Breath of Fresh Air starts with the premise: what if you've just asked your husband for a divorce, he leaves on a business trip, and hours later you learn he has been killed in a car accident? Charlotte, the main character, has this happen to her. No one in her circle of family and friends knows that she was unhappy in her marriage, so when she returns to her Cheshire village home (they had been living in Brussels), she is expected to be the Grieving Widow. Complicating matters are her Emma Woodhouse-like sister Hilary, her handsome tenant Alex, and neighbor Derek who sees her as another conquest; not to mention the parish tyrant, Iris Braithwaite. All these characters will surprise us at some point. The portrait of village life rings true and the love scenes are tender but not overly graphic. A nice palate-cleanser after a meal of non-fiction and violent mysteries. ( )