Rating: 
Summary: Slow But Steady
Review: Fforde's Stately Pursuits starts off slow and had me a bit worried. But, this enchanting story keeps you reading and in love with the characters. A young girls struggle with life, love, family and her career keep the pages moving and your heart hoping that everything will work out. You will be pleasantly surprised by this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Slow But Steady
Review: Fforde's Stately Pursuits starts off slow and had me a bit worried. But, this enchanting story keeps you reading and in love with the characters. A young girls struggle with life, love, family and her career keep the pages moving and your heart hoping that everything will work out. You will be pleasantly surprised by this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: An Undiscovered treasure, a great storyteller
Review: Hetty Longden has vowed off the entire male race after her lover insures that she sees him in bed with another woman. After dropping the rogue, the unemployed Hetty agrees to watch her great-uncle Sam's decaying mansion, Cambridge House, which is in the middle of nowhere. She also takes over Sam's finances, but learns her relative is in big financial trouble. However, the biggest problem confronting the future of the rotting house is Sam's heir Connor, who wants to rip down the pink elephant and replace it with an amusement park. Instead, Hetty and some townsfolk fix the place up so that she can host tours to raise maintenance money. As the mansion is being repaired, Hetty and Connor begin to fall in love with each other, but there still remains an old house keeping them a part. STATELY PURSUITS is a humorous English romp that displays the talent of Katie Fford to paint a wonderfully delicious contemporary romance. The charming characters are all decidedly British (in some cases more like a Monty Python type of Brit), but in the end the house and the wild designs to save it from Con the barbarian steal the show. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: this book is yummy!
Review: I adored reading this book! True, it isn't earth-shattering philosophy; and if you want deep meanings, you're out of luck. If you want a fun bit of fluff, however, STATELY PURSUITS is positively delightful. The book is full of humour and quirky supporting characters;and I love the two leads, Hetty and Connor (especially Connor!). All in all, STATELY PURSUITS is a wonderful comedy!
Rating: 
Summary: Cute but comes up short
Review: I enjoyed this book enough to finish it but not enough to keep it. Katie Fforde has a pleasant writing style and the start of the book was it's strong suit--zippy opening, then cozy as Hetty settles into her uncle's house. I started to get somewhat bored when I realised neither incidents (the mysterious loan, for instance) nor characters (Peter, for instance) were going to receive any sustained development. I'm not looking for War and Peace here but she introduces elements and drops them for all intents and purposes. Why was the loan taken out? What were the dire consequences of non-payment? Why didn't she have a simple conversation with the lender about it? Was the lender legit or a mobster? Etc. What was Peter all about. There seemed to be something sinister about him at first and then he just becomes the jolly neighbor. The romantic element of the book was a bit silly--moved into heavy breathing territory. I bought a second book by Fforde on the strength of the opening of this one--I hope I enjoy it "whole" a bit more than Stately Designs.
Rating:
Summary: rather icky and dumb
Review: I had loved Fforde's Wild Designs so this one was a disappointment. Hetty is 24 and getting over a broken heart when her mother signs her up to go work at Courtbridge House, a family estate inherited by a distant cousin (who is in Turkmenistan). Hetty is like the silly fluffy hen she sounds like she's named after, and oh isn't it wonderful how the colorful local village people help her out. So many quirky characters in one place! Oh my! How annoying! She may or may not be in love with Peter, a local man who helps her out a lot, or Connor Barrabin, her own distant cousin whom everyone calls "Conan the Barbarian" because he wants to pull the house down (because it's falling apart anyway) whereas Hettty and the village want to open it to the public and rent it out for formals. whatever. who cares. This could have been a good book if it wasn't bordering on typical chick-lit histrionics all the time. Fforde can and has done better.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, witty, one of the best I have read this year
Review: I read "Stately Pursuits" about a month ago, and I couldn't put the book down. The trials that Hetty went through hit so close to home, that I could really relate. I was hanging on to every word that Fforde wrote, I could just imagine myself being pulled into Conner's little web, at first telling Hetty to stay away, and then trying to pull her inside. This book is a must read for anyone just ending relationships, or beginnig new ones. It gave me my confidence back. I sure wish that everyone could get a chance to read such a wonderful book. Thank You Katie Fforde, you helped me keep my sanity at a dark time in my life.
Rating: 
Summary: Great start, but petered out in to a dull and rambling book.
Review: I was looking forward to this book because it sounded so humorous and cozy--and, indeed the first half of the book was excellent. It started to bog down in the middle, most unfortunately, and I was only able to skim the last half. This is the first book I've read by this author, but even the entertaining first half of the book won't motivate me to read another.
Rating:
Summary: This is a must read!
Review: I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I found it thoroughly engrossing, and just darn right funny. It was cozy read, like curling up with a Mocha from Starbucks or listening to Chopin. The characters are vivid and likeable, and the old house is a worthy character unto itself. It is a must read for lovers of what I call "escapist" fiction.
Rating:
Summary: This is a must read!
Review: I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I found it thoroughly engrossing, and just darn right funny. It was cozy read, like curling up with a Mocha from Starbucks or listening to Chopin. The characters are vivid and likeable, and the old house is a worthy character unto itself. It is a must read for lovers of what I call "escapist" fiction.
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