Blackthorn Winter

Great human elements. Wish my small town could adapt some of Ms. Challis' well-developed empathy. Vivid, multigenerational characters are portrayed realistically. Her descriptions of local flora and fauna provide visions of thick hedges, stone walls, thickly-wooled sheep. Finished with a big smile and a cup of hot tea with milk - not a bad commendation for a summer-read in Georgia!

I've run out of Maeve Binchy books and this was a great substitute! I love getting to know the characters in the little towns and this book entertains with just that. I am going to be buying more of Sarah Challis's books.

Enjoyed very much. Readers who are Rosemund Pilcher amd Marsha Willet fans will also like Sarah Challis'works.

This was my first Sarah Challis novel and I found her delightful characters living in a charming English village completely captivating. Readers who are enchanted by Rosamunde Pilcher and Marcia Willett will find Challis to be an equally enjoyable writer to spend time with. Claudia Barron has led a glitzy and glamorous life in London. Alas, her well-known husband has recently been splattered across the tabloids, convicted of fraud, and exposed as an adulterer. Humiliated, Claudia flees to an inconspicuous village and hopes to live anonymously and detached from fair-weather friends. Even though she changes her name, her reclusive behavior causes mumblings in the village and before she can say "no comment" she has been thrust into a cast of characters as endearing as any you would want to meet: Julia Durnford, her nosey parker neighbor who manages every detail of the village; Peter, Julia's milquetoast husband; their daughter Victoria who is feeling the pangs of being the left-out and lonely teenager at boarding school; Jena, the ten-year old gypsy who runs free; and Valerie, the semi-alcoholic neighbor to whom Claudia can reveal her secrets. Add to this mix, Claudia's visiting adult children: the lively Lila who flies in from New York and Jerome, the brooding son who returns from India with a secret too devastating to share. And finally, there are the two available men who catch Claudia's eye---will she succumb to the sexy and suave Anthony Brewer or be stabilized by Chris, the straightforward widower with four daughters? Cozy and comforting, this is a most appealing novel I was sad to see end.

BLACKTHORN WINTER by Sarah Challis January 19, 2005 One of my favorite books read in 2004 was BLACKTHORN WINTER by Sarah Challis. I can't say enough about this novel. The characters, however, was the driving force behind this book, although the center of the story was Claudia Knight's life as she tried desperately to begin a new one in a village called Court Barron. She does everything including change her last name, in the hopes that her neighbors will not know who she is, or discover that her husband is Roger Baron, the man who was recently sent to jail for a financially related crime. While Claudia does her best to start a new life as a single woman, she also has to deal with her two adult children. Her daughter continues to defend Roger, even though he's in jail and has also had an affair with a woman he would rather be with than his own wife. Her son is in India and emotionally and physically is as far from Claudia as he will ever get. She does have a true friend in her sister-in-law Minna, who supports Claudia through phone conversations and communications through the lawyer, David. Hiding her true story from the neighbors is a 24-hour job. She doesn't know how long she can keep up this charade, especially with the newspapers that often cover Roger's story on the front page. As she builds a new life for herself, she slowly gets to know the neighbors, and the story unfolds. Challis does a great job developing the characters and their various relationships, and it is the relationships and the personalities that make BLACKTHORN WINTER a delight to read. This book is highly recommended by the Ratmammy.