Belonging

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Scottish romance
Review:

Rebecca Urquhart fled her beloved family home in Ardlonach on the west coast of Scotland when her younger but male cousin Tony inherited the family property. However, several years later, when it seems that Rebecca has attained everything in Edinburgh, she abruptly quits to return to her family home. Rebecca seeks rest from her out of control pace before she makes a personal decision that will change the rest of her life.

She quickly finds that her former home is a failing hotel whose owner, Tony, has deserted it and his spouse Una for the Cayman islands and another woman. Rebecca quickly applies the tools she learned in Edinburgh and takes charge of running the hotel and helping her friends with their problems. However, the only problem the female dynamo cannot resolve is Dan McNee, who quietly gets his way. As fire and ice collide, they fall in love. However, Rebecca has a decision to face back in Edinburgh and what ever she decides will impact on any lasting relationship with Dan.

BELONGING is a warm romance that brings alive life in a small Scottish community. The story line is entertaining as Rebecca and Dan do constant battle. The secondary cast provides incredible layers of depth rarely seen in a romance. With her beautiful tales, Alexandra Raife is quickly proving that she belongs with the top writers of contemporary Highland romances.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: One of the very few books I've chosen not to finish...
Review: A nice little story of a woman who goes back to visit an old family home of her childhood for a holiday only to become entrenched in life there. Instead of escaping life and having time to herself she is thrown into helping to manage a busy seasonal hotel.

Not only does she not resent the change in her life, she also finds, as the title suggests, a sense of belonging.

The story has a beautifully described landscape, however, it was a little slow for me, and perhaps too close to "Wild Highland Home", which is also set there, with the same characters.

Rating:
Summary: nice Scottish romance
Review: A nice little story of a woman who goes back to visit an old family home of her childhood for a holiday only to become entrenched in life there. Instead of escaping life and having time to herself she is thrown into helping to manage a busy seasonal hotel.

Not only does she not resent the change in her life, she also finds, as the title suggests, a sense of belonging.

The story has a beautifully described landscape, however, it was a little slow for me, and perhaps too close to "Wild Highland Home", which is also set there, with the same characters.

Rating:
Summary: A solid, dependable read.
Review: Belonging takes place in the same area of Scotland as Wild Highland Home. If you liked Wild Highland Home, you will like this. It is however, very different. The main character Sally is a take-charge character who finds herself suddenly adrift. A vacation/escape to a family -owned inn turns into more than she bargained for when she finds herself managing the day-to-day operations of the hotel. Alexander Raife has a light touch and absorbing prose. This is not your typical "romance" book. The characters are well-written and for the most part likeable. The day-to-day chronicle of their lives is absorbing. Clare and Donald from Wild Highland Home are mentioned as well as other characters from that book. Trudy, a character I liked in Wild Highland Home has a more prominent role in this book. A solid read.

Rating:
Summary: A Rich, Lovely Story
Review: Here is a tale for dark, wintry nights, with a cozy quilt, a cat or two, and a cup of tea (of course!) in fine, flowered china. It is the story of sophisticated urbanite Rebecca Urquhart, who flees her Edinburgh home for the comforting Highlands and the family estate she had known and loved as a child. There, she manages to bury her heartache (we don't know what it is, but Raife, with her usual skill, lets us feel the anguish with Rebecca anyway) in a flurry of sensible and hard work as she struggles to help save the property from ruin. As the story deepens, it becomes even richer. Yes, there is a love interest, sexy as hell, but this is no lightweight romance, and the eventual ending is as satisfying as any fairy tale--but with a strong dose of reality. I loved this book, and highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended Read!
Review: I found this book thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable. The plot was never boring, carrying the reader through to the finish. The secrets that plague Dan and Rebecca and that threaten to destroy their relationship are startling and interesting. Their relationship was wonderful - kind and caring as well as complex and interesting because of their multi-faceted personalities. The story on the whole was fabulously romantic and pleasant. I recommend this book without hesitation!

Rating:
Summary: Endless and banal
Review: I read Drumveyn first, and enjoyed it. So I picked up Belonging from the used bookstore, hoping for the same enjoyable experience. Disappointed isn't a strong enough word to describe my feeling about this novel! For heaven's sake, the author dragged in countless characters that had nothing to do with the plot, and so diverted necessary character development from the protagonist because she wasted time on the supporting players. The main character's motivation for leaving Edinburgh isn't revealed until nearly the end of the book, but countless references drag on and on. I'm usually not tempted to read the ending of the book at the beginning, but I really had to hold myself back on this one. Don't waste your time--read Drumveyn instead.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing and dull
Review: I was looking forward to reading this author for the first time but this book couldn't catch my interest at all. I gave up after the fifth chapter. The premise of the story is unbelievable and the characters are unreal as well. Don't waste your time on this one.

Rating:
Summary: poorly written with a worse editing job
Review: I was very disappointed by this book. I adore Scotland, and I also love Rosamund Pilcher's books about Scotland. Having read all of her books, I was looking for an author whose books would take me to Scotland as vividly as Ms Pilcher's did. Alas, I was disappointed in Belonging.

The real problem with Belonging is that it does not have a book-length plot, although it is not a short book. This means that there is an enormous amount of repetition. Since very little actually happens, the repetition centers around feelings. This makes for very boring reading. One can only read about an identical episode of emotional tumult so many times without becoming impatient. Ultimately, the two main characters have identical sources of emotional upheaval, which adds wild improbability to the mix of unattractive attributes of this book. It just does not ring true.

It is, of course, the case that Ms Pilcher's books are not particularly probable, but they are beautifully written and the reader is eager to enter into the world they depict. Belonging simply does not accomplish this. Actually, what I longed for in reading Belonging was a red pen and the opportunity to edit it, both for the truly astounding number of typographical errors and for the rampant repetition that made the characters sound silly instead of thoughtful or perplexed.

Rating:
Summary: One of the very few books I've chosen not to finish...
Review: We make it to only the third paragraph before the existence of The Secret is revealed. The Secret, it seems, serves as the impetus for almost every action the main character takes. The first 100 pages are peppered with liberal references to the secret-- lest we forget that there is a crucial piece of information that will be revealed if we just have the fortitude to keep reading. However, it takes a special type of reader to wade through hundreds of pages of weak plot and boring dialogue just to discover a secret that concerns a character that inspires little emotional commitment. I found myself not up to the task. An inordinate amount of time is devoted to the emotional development of seemingly every character who enters the pages. As a consequence, we gain a nodding acquaintance with many, and intimate knowledge of few. Those who have pages and pages and pages of their inner dialogue recorded still feel oddly flat and unemotional. I eventually just flipped through the pages, found the secret, and moved on to another book.