'Nuturing drooping aspidistras and desiccated begonias back to full health'.
I've been reading so many more books recently where the protagonist is middle-aged. As a 52 year-old in reality, a 30 year-old in my head, and a 70 year-old in my body, I love that Celia, Amanda, Terri, and Enzo made me feel that there are still hundreds of opportunities, just waiting around the corner.
When I read that Celia ran her very own houseplant hospital, I found myself wondering whether I knew enough about plants to run my own… I definitely don't! 🤣 But Celia did, whether it was a poorly Peace Lily, a sickly spider plant or a finicky Fiddle Leaf Fig, she somehow manages to find a cure and send them on their way. Does she cure Spike? You'll have to read the book to find out! 🌵
I think you'd need to be in the UK, and old, to remember a character called Beryl the Peril in a comic called the Beano. Well, Mathilde is Enzo's nine-year-old daughter and that's who she dresses like. With her black and red stripey tights and black dungaree dress, it gave me a blast from the past as the sassy little girl knew what she wanted and went all out to get it!
Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Woman Who Got Her Spark Back by Fiona Gibson
About the Book
Meet Celia. Life hasn’t worked out quite how she’d planned.
Since her son left for university, Celia has felt stuck at home – battling with her husband Geoff over control of the thermostat, and without the merest glint of a social life. Her only joy comes from the plants she nurtures in her makeshift plant hospital in their Glasgow flat.
Then three unexpected things
She catches Geoff in bed with a secretary from his sausage factory (no pun intended). Her high-flying best friend Amanda arrives on her doorstep without warning (but with a very large suitcase). A tall handsome French teacher asks her to tend his daughter’s cactus back to health. Suddenly, Celia finds her life in freefall, but she makes a she won’t let this be the end of her. She’ll bring herself back to life, just like the plants she works her magic on. But just how do you change the habits of a lifetime?
As a self-confessed magazine addict, Fiona started working on teen bible Jackie in Dundee at the age of 17. Originally from a West Yorkshire village called Goose Eye, she spent her twenties as a magazine journalist in London and moved to a crumbling old house in the South Lanarkshire countryside when her twin sons were toddlers.
When her boys left for university, Fiona felt a craving for city life again. With her husband Jimmy and their daughter Erin, she now lives in a flat in Glasgow. She loves to draw, paint, cook and run – usually with her collie cross, Jack (just the running part).
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