The Cactus by Sarah Haywood

I'm not entirely sure if I enjoyed this book or not. 

It is certainly very well written.  It certainly has strong characters.  It has a believable(ish) plot that moves fairly smoothly.

However, I did find that I couldn't actually read for more than an hour without having to put it down and go and do something else.  I'm not entirely sure why this was but it was perhaps more to do with Susan's character than anything else - abrasive doesn't begin to even cover it.  Sadly, I did recognise myself in a lot of Susan - particularly when at work and her desire to generally avoid human to human interaction.  Maybe this just made it all cut a bit close to home but I'm genuinely not sure.

It also didn't help that I found the romantic facet of the story to be a rather strange.  Yes, you can guess where it will all end up more or less from their first meeting but getting there wasn't exactly fun.  Despite Susan's protestations of self-reliance it all feels a little bit desperate and hostile rather than insouciant with hefty dollops of "methinks the lady doth protest too much".  I did like how Susan's character softens throughout the story though and how this was shown as being due to friendships that crept up on her rather than merely hormonal.

I did like the friction between Susan and Edward; fraternal relationships can be so difficult.  The battle surrounding her deceased mother's estate was well constructed and all too realistic - right down to the needless litigation.  Although, the conclusion of that felt like a little bit of a cop out somehow.

On the whole I was left a little bit confounded by this book and although I finished it nearly a week ago now I'm still undecided as to how enjoyable I found the reading experience.