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Rating: 
Summary: Pleasant but not outstanding
Review: Basically I agree with all of the other reviews here -- this is a charming, pleasant read, but not Fforde's best (which would have to be Second Thyme Around). What I would like to know is, did anyone catch the line about which Booklist said, "[people may be put off by ]British colloquialisms, including one that could be viewed as so "politically incorrect" as to be offensive." It slipped by me!
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant but not outstanding
Review: Basically I agree with all of the other reviews here -- this is a charming, pleasant read, but not Fforde's best (which would have to be Second Thyme Around). What I would like to know is, did anyone catch the line about which Booklist said, "[people may be put off by ]British colloquialisms, including one that could be viewed as so "politically incorrect" as to be offensive." It slipped by me!
Rating:
Summary: she recycles too much
Review: I was vastly entertained by Second Thyme Around and Wild Designs but now I am tired of the author dredging up the same key components (woman in 30s, running some sort of independent business, has given up on love when she unexpectedly finds it in roguish rakish guy. Denies her feelings while falling in love as they share circumstances relating to their businesses that throw them closer together).Please come up with something new, Fforde. Yes, your formula works, most formulas do, but that's why readers have to choose carefully which of books to read first because the rate of diminishing returns from reading these books are limited to 2 novels.
Rating:
Summary: Fun Fforde Fluff But Nothing Special
Review: Katie Fforde is the ultimate fluff-meister, and there's nothing wrong with that, in and of itself. But I had high hopes, after "Second Thyme Around," that Fforde was prepared to add some meaning to her tales. Not so with "Artistic License," a pleasant little romp that's as easy to digest as vanilla pudding. I find all of Fforde's heroines endearing, and Thea, the subject of this particular book, is the typical Fforde protagonist: a thirtysomething single Brit with a sweet temperament and a "let's get on with it" disposition. She's a bit muddled around the edges, and a bit of a Bridget Jones, but she is so endearing that the reader really wants to see her succeed in her hairbrained scheme to open an art gallery in the English countryside. Along the way, Thea encounters her share of male scoundrels and sweetiepies, and everything turns out alright in the end. There is the usual cast of supporting characters, from the overbearing friend, Molly, to the dithering teenager, Petal, to the rich, upscale London friends. Fforde has explored this territory many times before, and I'm not going to say that it isn't enjoyable. But with the exception of "Second Thyme Around," in which she explored serious topics with great success, all of Fforde's books seem exactly the same. Not bad, by any means, but nothing special either. It's a shame, because Fforde is capable of more.
Rating:
Summary: Fun Fforde Fluff But Nothing Special
Review: Katie Fforde is the ultimate fluff-meister, and there's nothing wrong with that, in and of itself. But I had high hopes, after "Second Thyme Around," that Fforde was prepared to add some meaning to her tales. Not so with "Artistic License," a pleasant little romp that's as easy to digest as vanilla pudding. I find all of Fforde's heroines endearing, and Thea, the subject of this particular book, is the typical Fforde protagonist: a thirtysomething single Brit with a sweet temperament and a "let's get on with it" disposition. She's a bit muddled around the edges, and a bit of a Bridget Jones, but she is so endearing that the reader really wants to see her succeed in her hairbrained scheme to open an art gallery in the English countryside. Along the way, Thea encounters her share of male scoundrels and sweetiepies, and everything turns out alright in the end. There is the usual cast of supporting characters, from the overbearing friend, Molly, to the dithering teenager, Petal, to the rich, upscale London friends. Fforde has explored this territory many times before, and I'm not going to say that it isn't enjoyable. But with the exception of "Second Thyme Around," in which she explored serious topics with great success, all of Fforde's books seem exactly the same. Not bad, by any means, but nothing special either. It's a shame, because Fforde is capable of more.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, come on, it wasn't that bad!
Review: Starting with "Second Thyme Around," I tore through Katie Fforde's previous books in a matter of weeks. And once you've read one or two of her books, you can guess the happy outcome of them all--while struggling to either build a business or garden or home, our quirky heroine meets and falls in love with one of two prospective men. This time, with "Artistic License," the premise falls flat. The main character (two days after finishing the book, I can't remember her name) decides to open a gallery from scratch to show an unknown, but sexy artist's works, all the while caring for the litter of pups he has dumped on her. She in turn dumps a ton of responsibilities on her wealthy friends and tenants, both of whom she seems to have little affinity for. And of course, through all of this she falls in love with some other guy. Unfortunately, Katie Fforde devotes only the last couple pages of the book to this budding romance.
While I finished "Artistic License" in two days, this is the first Fforde book I wish she hadn't written and that I hadn't read..
Rating:
Summary: Old Friends
Review: While Katie Fforde continues to use some of the same old cliches to hook our interest. That is why we come back to her time and time again, because sometimes the warmest reads are the predictable-heart-melting-make-you-sigh-in-spite-of-yourself love stories. Not one of her finest love yarns, yet it holds true to what Katie Fforde writes.
The books you can curl up to when you need to be reminded that deep down we are ALL hopeless romantics.
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