Wild Life by Alison Brodie book review

Wild Life written and self-published by Alison Brodie is available NOW on ebook.

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She says he’s got five per cent body fat and one per cent brain activity.
He says she’s a foul-mouthed tart.
Meet Faustine and McPherson.

Faustine is terrified of responsibility and never wants kids. She lives in New York filling her time with dead-end jobs and high-end stimulants but when she hears that Beech Wood Rise is about to be flattened, she sobers up and heads home to England. The ancient woodland holds her only memories of her dead mother and she’s going to fight every step of the way to stop the land developer.
McPherson is the land developer. He never wants kids because he believes he’s inherited his father’s violent temper. Having been evicted from his home as a child, McPherson’s mission is to build low-cost housing for the poor. And Beech Wood Rise is his next project.
Oscar, 9, has been taken from his crack-head mum in London and placed with his aunt in the countryside while Child Services find him a foster home. Oscar dislikes his aunt and takes up residence in the abandoned tree-house on Beech Wood Rise.
Suddenly, Oscar’s peace is shattered.
Oscar watches the battle between Faustine and McPherson with a spectator’s enthusiasm, while fanning the flames of war. Yet he knows his days of freedom are numbered. Rather than go into foster care, he plans to do a disappearing act.
When Faustine and McPherson discover that Oscar is not a middle-class brat dodging piano practice but an emotionally traumatised reject who is about to run away, they declare a temporary ceasefire as they try to save him.
What they don’t know is: all their careful plans to stay child-free are about to be challenged.
Oscar has decided that Faustine and McPherson would make great parents. HIS parents.
Now all he has to do is make them fall in love.

Wow, I absolutely loved this novel and I didn’t want it to end.

A romcom story with great dialogue that makes you spontaneously laugh out loud and then it rips at your heart leaving you a crumpled mess, then your emotions are soaring high again.  It was so clever of the author, Alison Brodie, to bring laughter to a story that held a serious, sensitive subject to the crux of the storyline.

Faustine couldn’t believe her luck when she’d won the big modelling contract but then her heart sank a little when she learn’t that she had to now portray a certain elegant image.  She thought one last binge wouldn’t hurt then she’d do all she could to maintain the appropriate image for the mega bucks pay packet.  However, a plea of help from her sister to save the sacred trees near her ancestral home back in England may scupper her new image.

Property developer McPherson had set his sights on building a new housing development in a sleepy village in the Cotswolds.  He had a dream to make affordable housing and his aim was to bring families from inner cities to his idyllic location and let them feel and see the countryside all the time.  His dream was being hampered by local protestors appealing against his proposal hoping to save the ancient woodland which included the magnificent old tree lovingly named Old Bob by the locals.  He now had dwellers living in the tree which had been temporarily turned into a makeshift treehouse.  A young boy and woman were residing in the tree but McPherson felt no threat from them.  Little did he know that the woman residing the treehouse had a history with the tree and emotions were running high.

Faustine’s mission was to stay in the tree till the protestors won the appeal.  This tree Old Bob held so many childhood memories for Faustine and it hurt her deeply to think that someone could quite easily chop it down.  The young boy helping Faustine with her protest was Oscar.  A very street wise lad from London that was currently staying with his Aunt nearby whilst his mum was recovering from her drug addiction in rehab.  Through his bravado you could sense a vulnerability within Oscar and the more Faustine got to know him the more she realised he needed her help.  Faustine had never felt maternal but she felt a kinship with this child and with the unexpected help from the developer McPherson the adults strove to help young Oscar as much as they could.  Unbeknown to the adults young Oscar was plotting to bring the temporary warring adults together.

This was such a wonderful story full of warmth and good humour.  Alison Brodie had injected some sizzling sexual chemistry within the story and I felt that the shared love of the countryside was soon spreading it’s magic to our warring couple.  It felt like Old Bob was an anchor pulling all three main characters together; Oscar, Faustine and McPherson each had a part to play in helping one another.  A funny, sexy, heartfelt story cleverly blending around a serious issue.  5/5*

To find out more about Alison Brodie and her books please do visit the following pages:

Website:  http://www.alisonbrodiebooks.com/

Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/alisonbrodie2

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/AlisonBrodieAuthor/