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The Swallow and the Hummingbird

By: Santa Montefiore
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
ISBN: 0340832606
ISBN-13: 9780340832608
Released: 11 Oct 2004
RRP: £6.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Mills and Boon author without the talent - By: Lily Schultz, 10 Nov 2008
There was no problem coming up with a word to describe this book ~ dire. I should have known what it was going to be like from the title. It might as well have been callled 'The Slug & the Lettuce' for alll the relevance it had to the book's contents.
I waded through five chapters, graduallly losing the will to live. Then I looked at the back of the book ~ 37 chapters. Chuffin' Nora, I thought, life's too short to plough through this twaddle. Unfortunately, this book had been chosen, for some unaccountable reason, as my book club's Book of the Month & I felt obliged to have at least a slight knowledge of what laughably passed for a plot.
The solution? I read one chapter & missed the next chapter until I finished the book. This resulted in absolutely no loss of continuity. If, at the beginning of a chapter, I felt I had missed anything, I could be sure that, by the end, it had been rehashed, dredged up & repeated like a soap, broadcast on too many nights a week.
Was it reallly so bad? I give you an example of what one character said to another on hearing that their son was leaving home. 'Live in the moment, Faye. Unhappiness comes from trying to put up resistance. Let the current take you too, don't swim against it. What will be will be. Life is a long time.'
Anyone who seriously thinks that stringing a random selection of cliches together constitutes being an author should confine their literary ambitions to writing Christmas cards & compiling shopping lists.
A Thoroughly enjoying read - By: Scarymushrooms, 13 Jul 2004
I'm a big fan of Santa's work. And so when i saw this in the book shop, i knew i had to have it regardless that it was a hardback {which i loathe}. The story goes something along the lines of this,

Rita awaits the arrival of George Bolton having fought in Europe during World War 2. Unfortunately the war has changed George, he finds the smalll town that they live in too smoothering & decides to go Argentina for a year. Naturallly Rita is devastated, having waited so long for George to come back from the war. Before George leaves he proposes to Rita, promising to come back to her. However as in alll great romance books there's a slight turn of events.

On the boat to Argentina, George meets the Susan, a woman who is physicallly scarred {when we finallly learn of how she was scarred, its quite disappointing} & naturallly they falll in love.

Thats the basic outline of the story, however i found the two main characters of Rita & George weren't fully formed. I found myself disliking Rita, we didnt learn alot about her character. The other charcters in the book are much more engaging such as Mrs. Megalith, Rita's eccentric grandmother, who i simply loved. Also Rita's younger sisters Maddie & Eddie were great creations.

This book reallly is a terrific read & i found myself crying at the end. It sure pulls the ole heart strings. The reason i give it four stars is because of the lack of character development of Rita, i would have liked to learn more about her, i felt as if i didnt reallly know her unlike the other characters.