The Vintage Teacup Club by Vanessa Greene
Release Date: 11th October 2012
Publisher: Sphere
Buy: Paperback Kindle
Rating:
At a car boot sale in Sussex, three very different women meet and fall for the same vintage teaset. They decide to share it – and form a friendship that changes their lives…
Jenny can’t wait to marry Dan. Then, after years of silence, she hears from the woman who could shatter her dreams.
Maggie has put her broken heart behind her and is gearing up for the biggest event of her career – until she’s forced to confront the past once more.
Alison seems to have it all: married to her childhood sweetheart, with two gorgeous daughters. But as tensions mount, she is pushed to breaking point.
Vanessa Greene is an author I haven’t come across before so I was keen to try her debut novel, The Vintage Teacup Club. I always find it exciting to discover new authors and I was taken with the plotline of this story straight away.
Jenny, Maggie and Alison are three very different women, all at different stages of their lives but they are brought together one Saturday morning at a car boot sale when they all spot and fall in love with the same vintage tea set. Each want the tea set for very different reasons, Jenny for her up-and-coming Wedding to Fiancée Dan, Maggie, who works as a Florist, for decoration at the career-changing Wedding she is working on and Alison plans to turn the tea cups into candles to sell within her ever-growing craft business. The three decide to share the tea set and so a new friendship is born. Jenny, Maggie and Alison become more involved in each other’s lives than they could ever have imagined and prove vital in supporting one another through the various ups and downs their careers, relationships and families take.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about this story was that it was written from the viewpoint of each of the girls in every different chapter. When books are written in this format you feel as though you can identify with all of the central characters, rather than just one. However, Jenny’s chapters are written in the first person whereas Maggie and Alison’s are in third person which I struggled to get to grips with a little at first but you soon get settled into the format. Perhaps because of this Jenny was the character that I enjoyed reading about the most, but that’s not to say that Maggie and Alison don’t have interesting stories to tell too. They were all characters that were really likeable and easy to identify with.
The other intriguing thing about The Vintage Teacup Club is that Jenny, Maggie and Alison are all different ages and have varying experiences to one another. You perhaps wouldn’t expect their path’s to even cross under any other circumstances, but the fact that they become such firm friends makes for a heart warming story.
I think that people of any age would find this novel appealing, there’s something for everyone with plenty of little twists and page-turning moments along the way. Reading this novel almost makes you want to hit the car boot sales and hunt out some bargain gems of your own too.
I still feel that there’s so much more we could experience with these characters so I am dying to check out the e-book short story, Tuesdays at The Teacup Club (here) but I personally would love to read another full length novel about Jenny, Maggie and Alison too.
I should also warn you that Vanessas next novel, The Seafront Tearooms is due out in Septmber, so get pre-ordering.
If you’re looking for a light hearted, enjoyable read, this is perfect for settling down with whilst enjoying a good old cup of tea (mine’s white, no sugar, please!)
*Copy reviewed was my own personal copy.
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