on November 5 2018
Genres: Holiday, Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
Pages: 315
Amazon UK, iBooks, Kobo
Goodreads
Ginny is alone now after losing her husband, so her friends (her F.L.O.W.E.R.S) decide with his first memorial imminent, learning to ski in the Swiss Alps would be a great distraction for her. What Ginny’s friends fail to add into the equation however, is their own distractions! The baggage they carry with them not only threatens their skiing but scales mountainous emotions throughout the trip. The questions then are…can their friendships survive, and can Ginny ever trust enough to love again?
Today I am so excited to have Karen Aldous on my blog, with an excerpt from her blog Five Ladies go skiing! I really want to read this book, because well it is about skiing! As I go most years I do love to read what I can about the sport! Unfortunately I was not able to squeeze this one in! Instead I have been reading the rave reviews about this! Shall we check out what has been said so far on the tour?
Books are cool says
The Christmastime action is festive and fun, but not without tension and a few tears. Our five valiant ladies all discover something about themselves, and go home richer and better people.
This is an extremely enjoyable, touching and entertaining book, most definitely to put on your ‘TBR before Christmas’ list!
The Cosiest Corner says
It had everything you could possibly ask for in a novel, it had love, friendship, drama and snow! It had deep meanings behind this novel and for
that I was completely gripped. I would 100% recommend giving this novel a read, as you will be hooked after the first page! I will certainly be looking out for more novels by this author in the future that’s for sure!
Ginny
I still wasn’t convinced that learning to ski at nearly sixty was the right tonic. God only knows what Mike would have said if he’d known. I think he envied Angie and Rob, skiing with the boys. Several times over the years, particularly when Ross and Rachel were younger, he had asked me to go on a skiing holiday. My reaction had always been ‘over my dead body’. Why would I waste a week in freezing snow when I could go and lie in gloriously warm sunshine? It was ironic that I was off skiing to get over his dead body!
It wasn’t my idea to ski. It would have never hit my radar. It all came about when my friends took me for a spa weekend in the summer. Lou, Cathy, Angie and I went to the stunning Red Fir Manor with striking views of the Kentish Weald countryside. Apparently, they had already discussed a diversionary trip to distract my mind during the difficult period and wished me to have some input on where I go. I on the other hand thought that they should have input as they were so generously paying for and organising the trip. Subsequently, after lots of ridiculous suggestions and laughter, we agreed to disagree and threw caution to the wind; tossing two suggestions each into an empty china cup to decide on our New Year escapist adventure.
My two ideas were more genteel, but adventurous for mid-winter, I thought; for instance, cycling in Provence or hiking in the Lake or Peak District. Lou, who like me loves the sun, suggested surfing in Hawaii or Miami. Cathy suggested rock climbing in Sicily or Majorca. That was bad enough. But we passed the task to the waiter, who pulled Angie’s idea out. I nearly freaked. Skiing. And mountains. I would have preferred her other option, which was more my cup of tea: horseback riding in the Berber villages and fields of the Atlas Mountains. Not up in the freezing mountains, that in my mind were cold and hostile. Their scale alone evoked a light-headedness in me. When I’d glanced out during our flight, the ocean of rock whipping up waves from the valley floor looked like gigantic monsters circling me, like a pack of wild dogs. I was under no illusion of their ability to intimidate.
As horrified as I was, I carried determination around with me, eager to take on the challenge and stay upbeat. My friends cared enough to think of me. That was fundamental and I couldn’t disappoint them. We had, after all, managed to get through so much together, those troubling baby-rearing and parental stages, supporting one another through the deaths of our parents. We could manage a ski holiday surely? And the build-up and preparation Angie had organised had distracted me to some extent. A fitness programme, diet, five dry-ski lessons. Overtly, I was cheering, skiing at sixty with my Flowers, covertly a faker and betrayer. As for Mike, he would be turning in his grave if he knew I was skiing.
Flowers, by the way, was the name that us girls gave ourselves, because we are still girls at heart. We each had two navy sweatshirts with our own emblem of salmon pink roses. In fact,
we had them on now. The idea came about quite accidently when Cathy declared one night that we were Fun-Loving Older Women Embracing life, and we completed it with a Renaissance of Spirit, which is exactly our philosophy.
As Angie focused on the driving and Lou touched up her make-up, I kept the phone clutched in my hand, but then felt my chest lurch in panic. ‘Oh, God, I can’t remember if I put my thermals in. I remember putting in my big knickers in but …’
‘Stop worrying,’ chuckled Lou. ‘We’ll share if we have to. I’m sure we’ll have plenty between us.’
Cathy pulled a face. ‘Urgh. No. They’re not the sort of things I’d want to share. It would be like sharing underwear.’
Lou leant forward and frowned, her hand gripping a steel stem of Cathy’s headrest. ‘I know you’re getting on a bit, Cath, but you know, there’s this stuff they have nowadays called washing powder. It washes clothes. You can buy it in these places called shops, which they have even in the mountains. Correct me if I’m wrong, Ang?’
The car shook with laughter. Cath’s shoulder blade collided with her ear as she lowered her head. Her tight lips then burst into laughter too.
‘Oh, mock me, why don’t you. Charming. I suppose I will have this all week. I love you all, my darlings, but I’m sorry. No. I’m not sharing my knickers or thermals with anyone.’
Swiping a tear from her eye, Angie peered at me again through the rear-view mirror. ‘There are shops that sell them if you prefer your own, Ginny.’
‘Goodness.’ Cathy turned to face me. ‘Don’t we have it easy! I wonder what our grandmothers would make of us. Can you imagine your grandmothers skiing? My granny looked about eighty when I was a little girl. She could have only been in her fifties, forties possibly.’
‘Mine too,’ Lou said, chuckling, ‘but I bet they would share their knickers. A bar of carbolic and a scrubbing brush would soon sort them. Nan skiing, though. Not an image I can conjure.’
‘Lucky for us, we don’t have to revert to carbolic soap.’ Cathy let out a sigh. ‘Gosh, what they went through. All for our benefit. Two world wars to secure our future.’
Giveaway Time
a Rafflecopter giveawayGiveaway – Win 5 x Paperback copies of Five Ladies Go Skiing (UK Only)*Terms and Conditions –Please note prize will be distributed once the paperback is available (published 13th December). UK entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will
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