Plan B: A gripping and moving novel with shocking twists

I have been a fan of Emily Barr's works since I got a free copy of 'Cuban Heels' with a magazine some years ago (infact, 'Cuban Heels' remains one of my favourite books to date). However, some of her more recent books have not been so good (in my view), so I thought I would download one of her pre-Cuban Heels books onto my Kindle and see whether it was just me getting too used to her writing style. Turns out I quite enjoyed it, so maybe it's a case of Barr's older books just simply being better than her more recent books.The story is told from two perspectives, as is typical from Barr's stories. This time, the story is told by Emma, who is relocating to France with her partner Matt and their daughter Alice, and is also told by Hugo... let's just say you can work out early on how Emma's and Hugo's lives end up coming together. I was thinking "here we go", I mean Barr's stories usually have a twist in them which you can guess at but still come across as powerful once it's officially revealed, but I did guess particularly early on and I thought it would be a boring read from that point, but it surprised me that the twist was made known early on, so the focus became of Emma and Hugo sorting out the mess from the twist. Yes, there are a lot of familiar things about Barr's writing, such as characters dealing with childhood issues and thinking that going abroad solves all the problems, but there is plenty to like about the book.A good read if you like some of Emily Barr's other stories or if she's an author you were thinking of giving her books a go.

I had never heard of Emily Barr until, quite by chance, I stumbled across a copy of "The Perfect Lie" in a local charity shop. As someone who can spend hours in Waterstones I was delighted to find an unfamiliar author and settled back for a happy read. So unexpectedly rewarding did this turn out to be that I have spent the last few weeks working my way through all twelve of Emily Barr's vibrant and colourful novels. In the space of eight weeks I have been taken on what feels like a world voyage through India, China, Thailand, Cuba, Malaysia, Australia, France, Italy and many other countries and have been lucky enough to share in the sights, sounds and smells of these far off places. Could there be any better way to while away the gloom of an English winter aside from those lucky enough to be experiencing these countries for themselves? To focus solely on the travel aspect of Barr's books, however, would be to ignore the sheer addictive brilliance of the gloriously quirky story lines and the gritty portrayal of the plethora of different characters.Given that I have now completed my Barr-athon, I really must turn my hand to all those tedious jobs around the house which I have been shamefully neglecting but it seems ungrateful to do so without selecting at least one book for review. So, why have I singled out "Plan B" when I loved all twelve stories with an equal passion? Less of a thriller than some of the others, it was probably the most moving of all the books with characters I loved so much that I didn't want it to end. I cannot praise it highly enough.

I foolishly bought this in a rush on my Kindle without downloading a sample (I won't make that mistake again). What a waste of £5. The standard of writing is woeful, like a 15 year old girl in a creative writing class striving to produce a 21st century Mills and Boon. In today's straighted times with so much pressure on publishers, I'm shocked that such poor quality novels like this are even published. The plotline is admittedly good but it's lifted directly from several real life examples, and honestly, Jane Fallon did a far better job of the same plotline in a novel which was published several years after the Barr attempt. The best parts are the description of the french house and garden - these are well done and add a little colour. Sadly the main protagonists are frustratingly badly portrayed ; the main female character is ludicrously meek, yet undergoes a violent reversal of personality and then changes back again to a goody two shoes. Ridiculous. This jarred and was dreadfully unconvincing. I don't expect every novel I read to be Shakespear; I'm happy to wallow in a bit of Jilly Cooper or Jo Nesbo, for that matter; but this was so amateurish, `i read to the end with gritted teeth, thinking all the while that it would get better, which it did only marginally, but really, it's the worst fiver I've spent in a long time. Next time, I will remember to download a sample - what a great Kindle feature!

I thought this book was brilliant, even though I skipped a lot of the book as it was full of chat to prolong the ending. I would not have guessed the ending, which I think is always a good thing in books. Overall I would recommend this book because it pulls you in and I struggled to put it down, and when I wasn't reading the book I couldn't stop telling everyone else about it!

A good story, and enjoyable

This is my third consecutive and unputdownable book full of EB's marvellous imagination and skill in creating a great sense of both place and characters. I'm going to choose another one now, and would love to see this and the others as TV drama series.

I quickly got into this book but found the pace slowed down from the middle onwards. (I don't want to explain further and spoil it for others). I also thought that there was too much introspection on the part of the main character. Having said that I enjoyed the story overall - enough to try another of her novels.

If you've never read an Emily Barr novel perhaps you ought to begin. She writes wittily, intelligently and with pace. There are some true nuggets among her paragraphs - when you stumble upon them you will know.I'm not sure this is her best piece of work but once you are hooked on this author (as you surely will be) you will want to add it to your collection.It arrived exactly as described and came promptly through the post