Bed and Breakfast

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

This high-interest, low-vocabulary novella is intended for adult basic education (ABE) and English as a Second Language (ESL) readers. Annie runs a bed and breakfast. She has lived alone since her husband died five years ago. Now, she wishes for someone to love. One morning Brent, a guest, walks into her life. Her heart skips a beat. Handsome, charming, well dressed - will Brent turn out to be the man of her dreams?

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Watch for Gail's new novel, The Almost Widow, a thriller, released May 2023.

GAIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ’s first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the UK’s Betty Trask Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Vancity Book Prize. Her second novel, A Recipe for Bees, was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Spawning Grounds was nominated for the Sunburst Award and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award and short-listed for the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Fiction. Her thriller, The Almost Wife was a national bestseller in 2021, and her most recent novel, The Almost Widow, is out in May 2023.

Gail also writes young adult and hi-lo books for the educational market. Her book Iggy’s World was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and shortlisted for the Chocolate Lily Book Awards. The Ride Home was short-listed for the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize, as well as the Red Cedar Fiction Award and the Chocolate Lily Book Award.

She taught for nearly a decade in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of British Columbia and now mentors writers online. Gail Anderson-Dargatz lives in the Shuswap region of British Columbia.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Description:
Annie runs a Bed and Breakfast, having lived alone since her husband passed away five years before. She knows that she is now ready to love again, but who will turn out to be her Mr. Right, reliable friend Steve or handsome guest Brent?

Genre:
Books for adult new readers; Canadian fiction; Contemporary romances

Themes:
Second chance at romance

Subject:
Bed-and-breakfast
Interpersonal relations
Men/women relations
Widows

Reactions:

[Fischwife · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not the intended audience for this book, which is a "high interest/low vocab" book for adult literacy learners. That said, I like Gail Anderson-Dargatz's writing, so I thought I'd enjoy this more than I did. However, it's "chick lit," which is a genre I dislike, so I found the characters to be insipid and the plot predictable. Readers who enjoy romance stories will probably like this more than I did.

It is a very fast read.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent Hi-Lo title from Anderson-Dargatz. This is a romance that is easy to read aloud. There is nothing salacious about the writing style. there are no big words like salacious, which is exactly the point. I had to remove one star from the review for the two chapters long discussion on the hot water tank and the sheer number of times I had to say hot water tank.