NEW RELEASE
Midsummer Magic - Julia Williams (2013)
After a surprise proposal on Halloween, eight months later Josie and her fiance Harry are heading to her parents' house in Cornwall to plan the wedding in earnest. Josie's best friend and bridesmaid, Diane, is going along too and Harry's best man, Ant, who is none too keen on the idea of his best friend getting tied down, is back from his travels in Australia to have his say. But even before they get to Josie's parents, the weekend takes a calamitous turn when it turns out that Diane and Ant have something of a chequered history. When Ant runs into TV hypnotist Freddie Puck and encourages the other three to participate in Freddie's new show, mayhem ensues and love and loyalties are tested to the limit. The book is largely indebted to Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream and I think that a familiarity with the circularity and meandering of the play helps to somewhat temper the continual back and forths of the novel. Indeed there is a lot of to and fro in the plot and I thought it could have been less so. I liked the supporting cast of Tatiana, Bron and Puck (again mimicking Shakespeare's play) and the modern day take on this relationship. Overall I thought Williams succeeded in what is a very ambitious project of modernising Shakespeare and creating a fun, innovative chick lit novel, but I felt the plot did become a bit excessive and drawn out and I'm not sure how well it would work without knowledge of its source. (JC)
Love is in the air in Julia Williams' latest novel Midsummer Magic. The summary says: "Recently engaged Josie and Harry are visiting Josie's parents in the country to make plans for the wedding, together with her best friend Diana, and his best friend, Ant. Unbeknownst to Josie and Harry, Ant and Diana have met previously and don't get on. Sparks fly from the minute they meet, and one thing is certain, come the big day this is one Best Man who won't be making eyes at the Chief Bridesmaid... The weekend away takes place during the Summer Solstice, and as a dare, the four friends decide to stay out all night on the hills by the local Standing Stones, where local mythology says, a young married couple will find happiness, wealth and fertility if they can last a whole night there on Midsummer's Eve... In the village itself, Tatiana Okeby, an ageing soap star is making preparations for her role in the local summer outdoor production of A Midsummer Night Dream. A night in the pub with Anthony Slowbotham, the rather unlikely local lothario, to wind up her agent and one-time lover, Auberon Fanshawe, turns out not quite how she expects, thanks to the intervention of Auberon's assistant, one Freddie Puck, who manages to persuade her a walk in the hills is just what she needs to be doing right now... But as night time falls, a summer mist comes down, and the world seems somehow changed. Not all is at it seems, and not everyone seems to have remembered the boundaries of love..." Midsummer Magic is out in July 2013.