3 out of 4 stars
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An Obstinate Vanity by Keddie Hughes
This debut novel by Keddie Hughes speaks of one woman’s struggle to realize there is more to life than beauty. This Glasgow native has written a beautiful story on Beth Colquhoun who is a very successful and gorgeous Chief Executive of the Agency located in Glasgow. Beth is determined to show the world that women are equal to men and strives to prove they can work just as hard and be successful. Beth wakes up one morning to realize she has Bell’s Palsy, a paralysis of the facial nerve caused by a virus, and her entire world turns upside down. People now stare at her, are afraid of her and avoid her. This puts more stress than her ever demanding job does on her shoulders and it gets even more stressful when her company awards the Young Entrepreneurs award to a young man whose father so happens to be an ex love interest. She is now faced with meeting this man whom she has not seen in over twenty years.
Dougie, Beth’s ex love, lives with his son and runs an oyster farm in the town of Skye. Skye is close to Glasgow and he has no idea that he is fixing to be pushed back into his old love affair. He risks losing all he has to make his son happy and allow him to begin a small company selling dried sea weed as a replacement for salt. It is with his son’s new business that his world gets turned inside out to change for the better. As he learns to let go and adapt things begin to spark between him and Beth.
As the story unfolds things heat up between the two and hearts are broken. Beth continues to struggle with her Palsy and leads a company, but betrayal comes from the most unlikeliest of places and once again she is in a whirlwind of craziness. I will not be sharing any spoilers but the ending was quiet surprising.
I really enjoyed the storyline that Author Keddie Hughes uses. I like that the main character is a strong female role and that she shares the scars of her success. It relates to the real world in that it points out the flaws with our cultures in that so many people feel that they must play games to reach high-ranking positions. I also really like how after all that happened Beth still came out on top.
Another thing I liked is how she incorporated Bell’s Palsy into the main characters theme. I felt that this gave Beth an ulterior edge and really had me hooked. It showed that her character had more inner strength than most women do. It also let me learn a lot about the condition itself. It made the story more exciting.
Something that really bothered me about this book were the small errors throughout. I found several places where words were left out or an s needed to be added to the end of words. I know that this book is written by an author that does not use some of the same words we do here in the U.S. but leaving words out makes me feel that she was rushing or that the editor failed to find them. I still greatly enjoyed the book and would definitely recommend it to friends especially since I felt it really focused on how beauty is not all there is to a successful woman. This is why I give it a 3 out of 4 stars. If the author were to have the book re-edited and the errors fixed I would definitely increase it to a 4.
For me this book was easy to read. I feel that it could be easily read and enjoyed by many other individuals no matter what age. It did not have over the top language that was difficult to understand and it allows one to be whisked away into another culture. I felt the author described her home very well. Thank you for writing this lovely book.
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An Obstinate Vanity
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