Book Review- Farm Fatale

I just finished reading Farm Fatale by Wendy Holden.

From Goodreads:

The must-have novel from smash UK bestseller Wendy Holden! Cash-strapped Rosie and her boyfriend Mark are city folk longing for a country cottage. Rampantly nouveaux-riches Samantha and Guy are also searching for rustic bliss—a mansion complete with all the fancy trappings. The village of Eight Mile Bottom seems quiet enough, despite a nosy postman, a reclusive rock star, a glamorous Bond Girl, and a ghost with a knife in its back. But there are unexpected thrills in the hills, and the two couples are soon swept up in various romantic entanglements, mix-ups, slip-ups, and unlikely seductions in their search for ever-greener pastures.

Farm Fatale took a little bit for me to get into.  I don't normally have a hard time reading British books, but for some reason I did with this one.

The characters were hit and miss for me.  Rosie and Matt and Bella were okay.  There were times I felt sympathetic for Rosie, but other times, she didn't mean that much to me.  And while I found Bella amusing, at times she could be annoying.  I think Matt was my favorite character, even though we only really get to know him in the end.  But I found that he had the most redeeming qualities.

I thought Mark was okay at the beginning but then he turned into a jerk, although that is what he was supposed to be.  And Samantha was just spoiled.  I thought Jack was going to be a nice guy, but I found that I didn't like him much either.

The plot had me fooled though.  I thought Rosie was going to end up with a certain guy, but she didn't.  She ended up with a guy that I didn't even see coming.  But I liked that and it felt right.

As for living in the country, this book didn't make me want to move there.  Sure, Matt's house sounded beautiful, but where Mark and Rosie lived sounded kind of awful to me.  Maybe I'm just a snob, but the description of their village doesn't meet what I imagine a lovely country village to be like.

Anyways, the book did hold my interest, and while I liked Beautiful People by the author better, this one wasn't too bad and I look forward to reading more books by Wendy Holden.

I gave this book a rating of 3/5.

This book fulfills items in the following challenges:
2010 100+ Reading Challenge: 88
ARC Reading Challenge 2010: 65

*FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for free by Danielle from Sourcebooks for an honest review.