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Title details for To Have and to Hold by Jane Green - Wait list

To Have and to Hold

A Novel

by Jane Green
Kate Reading
Audiobook
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What happens when your Prince Charming turns out not to be so charming after all? In To Have and To Hold, bestselling author Jane Green offers a sizzling, highly entertaining look at romantic relationships after we say “I do.”

Alice knows she should be happy. A charming twenty-eight-year-old with a successful catering business, she’s always dreamed of a rose-covered cottage in the English countryside, filled with children and animals and home-cooked meals. Her favorite attire is comfy jeans, her best manicure features garden dirt under the nails. But when her teenage crush—the wealthy, dashing man-about-town Joe Chambers—wants to make her his bride, Alice is more than willing to play Cinderella to Joe’s prince. Never mind that he wants her to change—a diet, ice-blond highlights, stilettos, snooty gallery openings—and that he’s allergic to nature and kids. She tells herself she’s happy to sacrifice for love, and besides, with Joe’s stunning good looks and high-profile career at a top financial firm, every woman in London wants to be in her shoes.
But that’s just the problem. Despite Alice’s efforts to be the perfect wife, Joe soon reveals a penchant for being hopelessly unfaithful. When a notorious indiscretion with a female colleague forces Joe to transfer to New York, Alice’s life turns upside down. As Joe continues to sneak around, and her best friend’s beau offers a tempting glimpse of what real love could be like, Alice must decide how much Cinderella she can take before her deepest desires win out—and if she can summon up the courage to find real happiness on her own.
Delicious, witty, and packed with sparkling sex appeal, To Have and To Hold is an unputdownable read that will have you rooting out loud for its endearing heroine. A #1 bestseller in Britain, this latest tale from the beloved, utterly winning Jane Green proves that the search for true love doesn’t always end when someone dons a veil, and offers a lively, refreshing take on modern marriage.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 13, 2004

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780739350058
      • File size: 291547 KB
      • Duration: 10:07:23

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The impossibly sweet, perky Alice feels tense and alienated in her marriage to the charming, philandering, controlling, and wealthy Joe. When his firm transfers him from London to New York because of an indiscretion, the couple buy a fixer-upper in the country, where she begins, as it were, to get her groove back. But could she be falling for her best friend's beau? Can Joe reform? Can their marriage endure? Kate Reading's lively interpretation of this romantic fantasy makes the listener believe that all's right with the world. She makes these ordinary people seem more interesting than they deserve, thanks to unflagging energy and the strength of her own vocal personality. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 1, 2004
      In bestselling British novelist Green's sixth novel, a less-than-perfect London marriage disintegrates stateside. Alice loves her husband, the dashing Joe Chambers, even though he works late and travels a lot—he can be so wonderful (when he's around) and she still can't believe he picked mousy little her. (Of course, he transformed her into a blonde-highlighted, Jimmy Choo–sporting sophisticate first.) Blind to Joe's incessant philandering—even after an office sex act gets him banished to New York—Alice accepts his guilt gifts and hopes for the best. She doesn't want to leave her London life, but she's always loved nature and the rustic life, so Joe buys, in addition to a Manhattan apartment, a house in fictional Highfield, Conn. As the prologue warns, it's not just any house; it belonged to (fictional) 1930s writer Rachel Danbury, whose novel The Winding Road
      blew the lid off the town with its saga of infidelities. "Does history repeat itself?" Of course! Green tracks, in great detail, Joe's further infidelities, Alice's dissatisfactions, their fights and reconciliations; she also dips into the POVs of Josie Mitchell (Joe's lover) and Emily, Alice's best friend. Alice is mostly sympathetic, but for someone who thinks of herself as "a post-feminist child of a feminist," she sure bends over backward to please the snake she married. The one plot twist, involving Emily and her beau, Harry, is sweet but predictable. Green's style relies heavily on exposition, and while her prose is clean, her story is padded—kind of like one of those sexy bras that rat Joe likes. 6-city author tour
      .

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Alice Chambers is trapped in a life she doesn't know she hates, with a wealthy but wandering husband, a slightly crazy best friend, and no real self to speak of. When husband Joe is transferred to New York because of an infidelity with a co-worker, Alice is less than thrilled about making the move. The change ultimately transforms her life and those in her circle. Elizabeth Sastre reads the novel as though your best girlfriend is telling the story. She is warm, com-passionate, funny, and decid-edly human in her delivery, making each character quirky and likable, regardless of whether she is reading parts for Alice, Joe, or his mistress. Green fans will love her performance, and those new to Green's work should find these characters endearing. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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