Appleby Farm by Cathy Bramley

This is a sequel to the Ivy Lane book and, fortunately, it does work as a standalone read as I haven't read the Ivy Lane book (yet).  This time we are following the fortunes of Freya and her family, the Moorcrofts.  Although it does contain spoilers for the first book there is enough in the first couple of chapters to immerse yourself in her life and figure out who is who.

Everything here centres around Freya's attempts to come to terms with her abandonment by her mother and father and to help her aunt and uncle, who more or less raised her, protect the family farm for future generations.  She is also trying to balance her relationship with Charlie after moving back to The Lake District.

The descriptions of life on the farm are idyllic and definitely hark back to a different era.  You do want to move in to Appleby Farm along with Freya and her Aunt Sue and Uncle Arthur but once we stray in to the saving the farm territory things become a little less enthralling.  Despite setbacks a plenty for the Moorcrofts Freya's venture is an immediate success and I do find this hard to believe; it isn't exactly a novel idea and being so far from the beaten track I doubt that it would survive much less be the powerhouse it becomes days after opening.  I also found it odd that a rural pub in the modern world doesn't serve a good cup of tea or coffee but there you go.

Slightly too much escapism for me in this one.  I do like a decent dose of reality with my chick lit and this book delivers that in a patchy manner and I can see how this would simply deliver a warm "girl done good" hug for a lot of readers but I found myself becoming infuriated with Freya and the relative ease with which she achieves her goals.  I did enjoy the rekindling of her childhood friendship with Harry and her new friendship with the delightfully batty Lizzie.

The plot is light and frothy and there are no surprises here at all - everything is flagged up for the reader well in advance so you only need to have a few braincells engaged to follow along.  The characters are warm and feel drawn from life and this is what keeps you engaged and reading on.  Somehow though I never got drawn in to their lives as I would expect to; something is missing to bring the whole together and I'm not sure what it is.