Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Stately Pursuits: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Stately Pursuits: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Stately Pursuits: A Novel
    Ebook389 pages5 hours

    Stately Pursuits: A Novel

    By Katie Fforde

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "You're not doing very much at the moment, darling. I don't suppose you'd care to house-sit for a while?"

    Thus begins the irresistible story of two fixer-uppers-an old house and a young woman-and their efforts to recapture their true luster.

    When Hetty Longden, freshly dumped and brokenhearted, agrees to look after her great-uncle's long-abandoned mansion in the British countryside, she's at something of a lifetime low. With no job, no lover, no prospects, and no particular talent for resuscitating crumbling estates, she hope for nothing more than some good old-fashioned escape. What she finds includes a cast of quirky an ever-present neighbors, a couple of SNAGs (Sensitive New Age Guys), some very humorless bank officials, two disarming little canines, one gracious, dilapidated, romantic old house, and, just maybe, enough elbow grease to polish everything up again.

    A British bestseller that's as inviting as an elegant old house full of unexplored rooms (after a good scrubbing-down, of course), Stately Pursuits is the funniest, smartest, and warmest read of the season.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 21, 1999
    ISBN9781466834064
    Unavailable
    Stately Pursuits: A Novel
    Author

    Katie Fforde

    Katie Fforde, a London Times bestselling novelist, lives in Gloucestershire, England. Her novels include Love Letters, Wedding Season, Restoring Grace, A Perfect Proposal, and Practically Perfect.

    Read more from Katie Fforde

    Related to Stately Pursuits

    Related ebooks

    Romantic Comedy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Face Value

      Oct 24, 2021

      Face Value
      7 min read

    • Article

      Maternal Instinct

      Apr 29, 2023

      Maternal Instinct
      6 min read

    • Article

      Heir Supply

      Apr 1, 2023

      Heir Supply
      2 min read

    • Article

      Lily King

      Apr 25, 2020

      Award-winning and bestselling author Lily King’s latest book, Writers & Lovers, is set in the Boston area during the 1990s. This cleverly written novel features a compelling protagonist, a struggling 31-year-old writer named Casey. Readers follow Cas

      2 min read

    • Article

      Eternal Muse

      Aug 26, 2021

      Eternal Muse
      3 min read

    • Article

      Harvest Delights

      Aug 9, 2023

      Harvest Delights
      2 min read

    • Article

      Make Your Garden A Wild Haven

      Mar 10, 2022

      Make Your Garden A Wild Haven
      4 min read

    • Article

      Snowy Retreat

      Nov 24, 2021

      Snowy Retreat
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Panopticon: John Updike’s Apartment Stories

      Mar 9, 2018

      Has there, in American letters, at least, ever been a better noticer than John Updike?  By “noticer,” I don’t mean “writer of detail,” exactly.  There are many writers whose use of detail I find more narratively effective:  Saul Bellow, Joan Didion,

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tilting at Windmills

      Aug 25, 2021

      WHEN I FIRST VISITED my wife’s family 40 years ago, a nearby road sign warned drivers to proceed carefully because a deaf child lived in the area. About two years later, the child and his parents moved to California. But the sign alerting motorists o

      3 min read

    • Article

      Parlez-vous Woke?

      Oct 3, 2021

      THE WORD “WOKE” has been weaponised. Look at almost any headline on the matter and you’ll find it used as an insult, another sign that this country has lost its live-and-let-live mentality and is headed straight for the dogs. And the targets are indi

      8 min read

    • Article

      It’s never too Late

      Apr 25, 2020

      It’s never too Late
      7 min read

    • Article

      Julia Reed

      Nov 16, 2020

      Julia Reed
      9 min read

    • Article

      Spirit Lifting

      Jan 28, 2022

      Spirit Lifting
      1 min read

    • Article

      #book Of The Month

      Nov 21, 2022

      #book Of The Month
      2 min read

    • Article

      Fabric Of Life

      Dec 16, 2021

      Before sewing machines took over, all women stitched. They had to. Think of clothing for a start. Teaching needlework began at home, then schools stepped in, so young girls are our guides to the sampler; a teaching medium that delivered much more tha

      2 min read

    • Article

      Repurposing

      Mar 8, 2024

      Repurposing
      4 min read

    • Article

      Small Wonder

      Apr 1, 2020

      Small Wonder
      3 min read

    • Article

      Growing Together

      Feb 10, 2022

      Growing Together
      5 min read

    • Article

      Her Once and Again Home

      Jun 1, 2021

      Her Once and Again Home
      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Stately Pursuits

    3.5/5

    120 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      Fluff book, easy to predict what was going to happen. Good book to listen to while working out at the gym.
    • 4/5
      Thoroughly enjoyed, even though a bit predictable :)
    • 3/5
      Not Fforde's best. Perhaps an early novel?
    • 1/5
      Could not get into this novel at all. Hetty was not very interesting and neither was this book.
    • 4/5
      Katie Fforde's heroines are charming - sometimes not the brightest, most sophisticated people alive - but they are thoroughly Nice and that's why we love them. Hetty has, in stock romantic heroine tradition, been dumped, and is looking for a quiet place to recover, so she house-sits the decrepit yet stately house of a distant relative. Enter Conan the Barbarian, the heir to the estate, who would like to see it torn down and made into a theme park. With that, we have the promised romantic novel set up and we're off to a good time. There's chemistry, there's laugh aloud moments, the bounder ex gets his due, and there's more chemistry. The reader is left smiling - no wiser or better informed, but greatly entertained.