An Englishwoman in New York

by Anne-Marie Casey

When Lucy's husband loses his job and is relocated to New York, she is forced to give up her posh London life and move to a tiny Manhattan apartment. Homesick and resentful at first, Lucy soon finds herself embarking on an exhilarating new affair - no, not with her husband, although she is surprised to find they do still love each other, but with the city itself and the three women she meets at the school gates who, against all odds, become her friends.

Christy, married to a wealthy older man, questions her life choice as she fantasizes about her doorman and tries to make peace with her angry stepdaughter. Julia is a workaholic television writer who becomes convinced her family is better off without her, until a neighbour's dog makes her re-think everything. Meanwhile Robyn, bread-winning wife to an aspiring novelist, has had enough. She wants what her friends are having - even if it means an affair with at least one, if not all, of their husbands . . .

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, Womens Fiction, Contemporary, Adult Fiction, Family, Adult

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Anne-Marie Casey is a novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Her film and TV scripts have been produced in the UK and Ireland and her theatrical adaptations of Little Women and Wuthering Heights enjoyed sell-out runs at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. No One Could Have Guessed the Weather, her first book, was an international bestseller. She is married to the novelist Joseph O'Connor. They live in Dublin, Ireland, with their two sons.

Reviews

[Keris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a bit odd (though I can't really put my finger on why) and not what I was expecting (the cover doesn't fit it AT ALL), but I really enjoyed it. It's a series of linked stories starting with an English woman who moves to New York (hence the title), but it's not just about her, it's also about the women she meets there. In fact, for me, screenwriter Julia is the star of the book, but all of the characters are interesting. There's some great snappy dialogue and it's very New York-y. It reminded me of The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank.

[Tripfiction · Rating 2 out of 5]

"NEW YORK: Lucy in the sky...."

Let's start with the basics, the cover. Delightful, well composed, nice and tasteful, a woman in a green cocktail dress, with alternating stripes of Sap Green and Hooker's Green (yes, the latter is for real, just check the Daler Rowney Colour Chart). With the iconic background, it shouts New York and sophistication.

Covers, as I have mentioned before (ad nauseam probably), are pivotal to the experience of the reader, they are an indicator of content and they heighten expectation. The are a reader's first port of call. They are IMPORTANT!

This cover has a 1950s feel, the dress combined with the hairstyle is very Grace Kelly and the font is of that era. However, all of these factors misrepresent the very contemporary content and setting of the book (although the parenting skills of Mad Men's Betty Draper do get a brief mention). This is not a novel of the 1950s, it is very firmly a novel of the 21st century. We know this because there is reference early on to the global collapse in the financial markets, and the kids play Transformers (and Post-its, referred to in the text, first came to market in 1981 - you see I do my homework!). It is not 1950s; thus we award Klaxon number 1.

The title might then lead the reader to believe that the book is essentially about, and from the perspective of, the Englishwoman of the title. Wrong! Klaxon number 2. The book is a meander through a social group, comprising only in part Lucy (the British woman of the title) and her husband Richard. Then add into the mix Christy, Julia and Robyn, and their various partners and, oh, there's Lianne, and a further array of people, who randomly appear and then disappear. Take Lucy's Aunt Eva, for example; she gets a brief mention on a couple of occasions but Eva, otherwise known as the badger (though I am left wondering what knowing this might add to the story), has no real role and is soon relegated to the annals of history. We briefly go on to meet Felicia and Ronald, Lorraine, and Paula, who "was George's friend Louis's Mum" (that explains it all, then), Dolores, Jake, Ryan, Schuyler (keep up!), Sarah, Michael, Quinn, Max, Lee... and more. This is a character cast of Tolstoyan magnitude. Individuals populate the prose who essentially feel irrelevant to the main thrust (not that the thrust ever really gets going). It's rather hard to keep track of them all and frankly it induces senior moments of confusion (and, well, ennui). Though Kristian with a 'K' was memorable, because he is part of a treatise on Americanisms and punctuation errors.

There are some very astute observations about life in New York and there are snippets of ribald ripostes that are indeed 'witty and sassy' as the Sunday Express apparently eulogises.

However, it is the ambling nature of the (actually quite good) writing which begged the question whether an editor and proofreader had actually had sight of the script. The dialogue was on occasion hazy about who was actually talking, which can be very challenging for the reader (who of course is frantically scrambling to remember all the people who appear). The ramble of words left me wondering quite what was going on at some points. For example, Lucy goes for an interview with Carmen Ross, a film producer, who points out her Oscar; only it's not a figurine as one might expect, it's a cat - but the reader has to do some mental gymnastics and go figure. It was at this point that I reread this particular passage a couple of times, thinking I was losing my marbles. I did indeed deduce what was going on, but I then began to lose the will to live, as the effort to work out what was going on was becoming singularly wearisome.

As the novel chugs towards the end of its path, the sentences became longer and more convoluted - there was one (I exaggerate not) which took up 1/4 of a single page in the our copy of the book. Why would a reader want to chase the verbs, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs around a mangle of words? Afterall, this is not a book written in German, a florid and complex language which requires you to deconstruct the Teutonic word order and follow the verb to the end of the (invariably long) sentence, interweaving several sub clauses into the main body of text - or, if you will, verbal sequence - thus drawing out the final denouement, and finishing off with a final flourish of fireworks at its not-before-time conclusion (go figure again!). Life is too short.

So, as you have guessed, this novel will not be featuring on our Good Reads of 2013.

[Chris Conley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a charming, quirky book. The women in it are so real. I am so glad I stumbled across it,

[Mayda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel had a lot of potential, but unfortunately, it just didn’t live up to it. The chapters are really short stories that are somewhat linked together, but the result is a disjointed collection. The novel might have been better with less narrative and more dialogue. I never felt that I got to know the three main female characters at all, let alone the men in their lives. I could not relate – or even like – any of them. The character development was shallow, or maybe the characters were just shallow, and that is what the author wanted to portray, in which case, she did a fine job. Without much of a plot or well-defined characters, there is not much left to say about the book. Although tags by others about this novel said things like “smart, funny, brilliant, clever, and savvy,” I just couldn’t see it.

[Candy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't thrilled with this book. A story of 4 different women, and how they are dealing with different changes/experiences in life. I didn't see how the characters really had anything to do with one another. There seemed to be some deceit and back-stabbing. I kept hoping that it would get better, but never quite seemed to get there...

[Sophie (Blogger) · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Englishwoman in New York is a perfect book to read about New York and the storyline is so interesting that you can't help but get hooked by each of the characters. The story revolves around four woman who live in New York, These woman are Lucy, Julia, Christy and Robyn. All of these woman are live different lives, have different ideas but all share one thing the city that they live in.

All the characters are so interesting to read about and you can get hooked on their lives, Lucy is the first woman that you are introduced to in the book, her husband has just lost his job and they have to move half way across the world from their sophisticated life in London to a small apartment in New York or Manhattan to be exact.

Christy is totally the opposite to Lucy, she is married to a wealthy man who is a lot older than she is. Christy really wants to get along with her stepdaughter but her stepdaughter can't seem to play nice with her .But when she starts feeling things for the doorman she doesn't know what she wants anymore and starts questioning everything about her life.

Robyn starts thinking that having an affair will be the best thing as her life is going nowhere, being a wife of a to be novelist she decide that having affair like the rest of her friends would be the right thing to do but if it? Will Robyn's life be more fun if she had a affair or would she end up back a square one?

Julia a television writer who has work on the brain 24/7, having a family is just another part of her life that she doesn't have time for. Thinking that her family is better off without her and not knowing which way to turn. Though when her neighbour's dog enters her work filled life, she starts to re-think what her life has become and if her family are really better off without her?

I would recommend this book to anyone who love humour and a excellent storyline, also to anyone who love Manhattan as much as reading about it. This is prefect for the fans of Sex and the City with the grown up theme.

My favourite character is Lucy because from the first chapter I thought she was a very funny and interesting character that got better over the course of the book.

If I had to sum this book up in three words, they would be; Humorous, Brilliant and Unique.

[eb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weightless collection of linked stories about women living in Manhattan. Most of the characters are American, but they all talk like the Queen Mother—"you lot," "quite liked," "holiday" instead of "vacation," etc. etc. There's no literary merit here whatsoever, but there are plenty of laughs. I'd recommend this one for the plane, or drunken vacation reading.

[Nichola · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up on it!

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I’m being unfairly harsh because I don’t relate to these strange women with unhappy marriages, but this just wasn’t very good. It was written at such distant remove that while I got to know each woman, it didn’t feel like I had more than a narrative voice-over for the entire book. The blurb is not really accurate and the love of New York City (ugh. Again. Just once I want somebody to love Detroit or Yellowknife or St John’s or Boise!) is very tell-don’t-show. The final chapter enlightened me as to why I didn’t enjoy this though, as it reveals that it’s basically a bunch of Mary-Sue stuff from the author. The characters are more flawed than a typical Mary-Sue but she’s written way too much of herself in - not necessarily a bad thing but it felt self conscious here. I did appreciate how all the women were mildly likeable but not entirely so, yet none of the plotlines ended up going terribly wrong (I think? Some of them were a bit vague and skipped over the tough stuff). I think if the author had picked one character, let us get close, and then simply gave us windows into the others, I would have enjoyed this much more. It feels like a bunch of short stories trying to become a novel

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a different book… almost quirky. I don’t even know how to explain it. It was fast paced and revolved around a core group of characters. It was about love, relationships and friendships. Occasionally I’d get to a spot where it made me think a bit about a point that was made. It felt real and unreal at the same time.

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Either you like this book (very funny, all about New York, good dialogue, interesting people) or you don't (rambling sentences, too many characters who don't move the story forward, appear a couple of times and then disappear). Anne-Marie Casey writes well but needs to decide where her focus is. Is she writing a novel about a Englishwoman, happily married and in New York, or is she writing short stories? The short story format seems to be more correct because the woman of the title shows up in the first paragraph in New York, happily married to Richard with 2 children and then suddenly has to go back to England. So what happened to New York? Who knows!

Lucy shows up again intermittently back in New York in other women's stories, acquaintances from the bevy of women she meets picking up their children at school. At the end, she is still in New York but doesn't seem to have anything to say except that she is going to write a book of short stories about her adventures in New York--but not as it is actually a book about these friends! Each of her "girlfriends" has a chapter, Christy, Julia, Robyn and in some Lucy is hardly there. These personalities are described in a sentence or two which seems to go with a short story format. I would rather have read more about Lucy than the others although Julia seemed to be the most interesting of the lot. I would recommend reading this on plane trip. It will pass the time pleasantly and even cause you to laugh out loud from time to time.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover image is very simple but classy and the synopsis on the back made me want to get reading straight away.

My first impressions weren't right. I thought the book would be about instant friendships formed by Lucy and the women she met at the school gates - wrong.

Each of the four women have their own issues and opinions of each other. Lucy is like a fish out of water when she arrives in New York and appears quite unapproachable at first. Julie is insightful and subtle, a good judge of character. Telling a white lie to Lucy to save her embarrassment. Christy meanwhile is at a crossroads in her life and questioning decisions made both past and present and is unsettled and a little jealous of Julie's growing friendship with Lucy. Robyn meanwhile thinks the world owes her a favour and in particular the three women who seem to have everything she wants and thinks she's owed!

The book weaves in and out of each of the characters, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each of the women. My opinion of each of them altered throughout the book and I felt I knew the women. Like real life, given time, the right situation and good friends we all grow into the people we are. The book is a good example of strong friendships born from completely different characters who gel together to almost become one.

All in all a good read it's not all light and frothy but quite insightful into what makes people tick.

[Sooz · Rating 2 out of 5]

i'm a little over halfway done this novel. you know one of the things that -as a reader- i have learnt after decades of selecting books to read, is how to pick books that are 'right' for me. there are bound to be slip ups however and this is definitely one of them. unless this book as a stellar ending, i am going to end up feeling very 'meh' about it ... this translates to a 2 star 'it was okay' rating, which doesn't mean the book was really that bad. it just means i made a bad choice.

i think No One Could Have Guessed The Weather is suppose to be a smart, witty statement about modern women trying to find happiness ... or at the very least .... finding a way to live with themselves / keep their sanity. i just don't relate to any of the women -although i do rather like several of them- and i don't find it all that witty or funny.

it just isn't for me. it's short so i will finish it ..... if it were going to suck up a lot of time, i would probably just move on to something else.

so i did finish it. i think part of the reason i didn't really get into it is that the author jumps around between 4 or 5 different woman and it ending up feeling a little like The Housewives of Atlanta ... or Orange County ... wherever.

[PopcornReads - MkNoah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Review & Giveaway: The book cover drew me to No One Could Have Guessed the Weather by Anne-Marie Casey (UK title = An Englishwoman in New York). It piqued my curiosity and I had to find out more. When I read the publisher’s brief description, it resonated with me so I knew I had to read it. Other reviewers are comparing it favorably to The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, which I haven’t read.

What I can say about No One Could Have Guessed the Weather is that it’s quite a timely piece of women’s fiction. A lot of women have had to uproot themselves and their families in the ugly economy that’s been plaguing us for the last few years, and do things they never thought they would have to before then. This is one woman’s story, inspired by time the author spent living in New York. As the book cover says, “Sometimes what you want in your twenties isn’t what you want or need in your forties.” Enter our giveaway at http://popcornreads.com/?p=6117 to win a copy!

[Maryann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a cliche. Or rather, a whole host of cliches. The poor super rich women are bored with their lives and don't know how to adapt when the market tanks and they have to live "normal" lives. They don't feel fulfilled and have affairs or their husbands have affairs or they gossip about the affairs that are happening. I couldn't relate to any of the characters, ever. Also, the author kept using the British terms for things (i.e. jumper instead of sweater), even though the setting was NYC. This annoyed me more than it should have. It also took me a few chapters to understand how the characters related because each chapter jumped without any continuity.

Food: grocery store California rolls. It's trying to be fancy and upscale, but it's out of place and really kind of boring.

[Sandysbookaday (taking a step back for a while) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, and I could easily be friends with the women around whom this novel revolves.

Lucy is uprooted from her comfortable London life and moves to New York with her husband and children and into a somewhat poky apartment. Leaving her spacious home, nanny, housekeeper and, strangely enough, her depression behind, Lucy is forced to become self-reliant.

In New York she meets Christy, married to an extremely wealthy older man; Julia who abandons her husband and children for a somewhat self-indulgent nervous breakdown; and Robyn married to and supporting an aspiring but non-productive author.

These four women form the core of the novel; their husbands, children, step-children, lovers and various lesser friends forming the supportive cast.

An honest and amusing look at the changing patterns of friendship and how it ebbs and flows over time.

A worthwhile read.

[Pam Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Anne-Marie Casey weaves a story of flawed, but likable, fortyish females living their imperfect lives in New York City. Ms. Casey expertly intertwines their lives which includes a wide assortment of life issues: marriage, divorce, children, careers, friendships, wealth, financial loss, affairs, death, and more. She covers it all with smart prose brimming with humor, poignancy, and sophistication.

I particularly liked the very last page which cleverly pulls the story together into a neatly presented package.

I liked this book.

[Emily Antonen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sex in the City meets Married, With Children.

Four women in New York City deal with marriage, children, aging, oh...and lots of wealth, while they bat around their angst about life and consider whether each has the "splinter of ice" necessary to survive in Manhattan.

The message I took away from this book was that if you have rich friends who purchase you an 8 week writing course (and perhaps have some pull with a publisher,) you can get such a book published and highly placed, which otherwise would require restructuring and a couple more rewrites to be even considered.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't remember how this book eked up on my to read list. After I read some of the reviews and the dust cover synopsis, I was intrigued, though. While I wanted to like it, and was even prepared for a Sex and the City type indulgence, I felt let down at the end. It seems to be a character study, with a few "dramatic" plot twists that never really actually moved the plot (and were actually predictable). An average summer read, short and sweet, but not my favorite of thr summer.

[Book-shelf Shelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not something I would normally read, but actually a quite addictive story. Written almost as short stories, but each section involves the same characters just from a different point of view and a different time.
Very much a 'Sex In The City'/ coming of a certain age/life changing story which compels you to find out about the characters. Surprisingly fabulous!

[Megan Rosol · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great looking cover and an interesting title, but the book reads like Nora Ephon's book but without its heart and humor. Still, if you're looking for a quick read about dysfunctional, self-indulgent, mildly amusing, middle-aged women in New York, you may try to breeze through this book and see if something resonates.

[Megan Sayers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written with several lines that stick in your head for days after reading. The only real criticism I have is that all of the main characters are so far removed from reality... A Park Avenue millionaire mommy, an award-winning television screenwriter, etc.

[Bookread2day · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the cover of the modern lady in green. I did not personally find the story that interesting. I thought there was a lack of a juciy story line. However there are some funny lines in this story that did made me laugh.

[Shari Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book in so much that it is a collection of short stories that vaguely go together (the characters run throughout-not the story). Some of the stories/characters were vastly more interesting than others. What was frustrating was that when I would start to get interested in a chapter it would abruptly end and you would never hear anything more about what was happening.

[Marcia Murphey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read about several women who become friends while navigating the ups and downs of marriage and family life in New York City. They all have their quirks and traumas, and it makes it enjoyable and entertaining as we come to know each one. Well written. The title of the book is explained near the end, and makes so much sense. Loved the way the author did that.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was enjoyable until the middle when the women went on a horse bonding exercise weekend. Although it was interesting to see how the characters developed, particularly Robyn. Still, I would recommend it.

[Marci-Beth Maple · Rating 2 out of 5]

This sort of book makes me really sad, because it had so much potential. I think this author was let down by her editor, because all it needs is some rearranging, and it would be a lovely little novel.

[Madelynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read but a majorly underwhelming ending. Overall, the book is missing the ‘so what’ factor.

[Diana C · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10