Wild Weekend

by Celia Brayfield

In the tiny village of Saxwold, Oliver Hardcastle scrapes an existence as an organic farmer while his mother, Bel, spends everything she has on restoring Saxwold Manor. One stormy night, two women from London arrive in Saxwold – high-flying Miranda Marlow, an international town-planner and her mother, Clare, recently appointed Under-Secretary for Agriculture who naturally spends as little time as she can in the country. Misled by Oliver’s half-sister Toni, they take the Manor for a country house hotel. Oliver sees the opportunity to have a little fun and make a bit of money. The Marlows' luxury mini-break turns into three days of hell, complicated by an urban fox, a posing Goth, two illegal immigrants and a SWAT team of eco-warriors, while Miranda and Ollie loathe each other with something very close to passion. The classic comedy She Stoops to Conquer updated for 21st century England, where city and countryside are worlds apart but love still finds a way to connect them. “Most authors would give their eye teeth to write this well.” The Times.

Genres: Fiction

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Celia Brayfield has written four non-fiction books and nine novels of which Mister Fabulous and Friends is currently in development for television. Her novel Heartswap was optioned by Paramount and Harvest for Chrysalis Films. Celia is currently working on a series of historical novels. She also teaches Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and Brunel University.

After attending St Paul's Girls' School in London, Celia went to Grenoble University in France to study French Language and Literature, before moving into journalism at The Times. She has one daughter and lives in Oxfordshire.

Reviews

[Sarah Griffey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book. A highly visual writing style that brings every scene to life. Well observed characters; and a story of a British city dreamer owning a farm. Full to bursting with village life, spoilt children, tense mother/daughter/success/failure/am-I-good enough? relationships. I certainly couldn't put it down. Highly recommended.

[Lynn Hutchinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The worst kind of chick lit, no real story, just a lot of disjointed story lines, very improbable!

[Sam Amos · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit predictable but all in all not bad

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up because it looked to be light hearted and fun and likely to entertain me on the long winter drives between home and the resort town of Possilpark on the north side of Glasgow. I quickly became disappointed with my choice as the characters were developed – our hero: young, successful, rich and bored with the city in his mid 30’s and able to buy a £300k run down farm at an auction because he felt like a change of scene. Our heroine: highly successful, extremely organised good looking and single (you can see where it is going already….). Yuk! Where did the author get her experience of real people? But then we cue in the farming disasters, the government subsidies, the over powering mother figures, political shenanigans and a good dose of teenage angst. And these are mixed with a group of misguided animal lovers with an urban misunderstanding of rural life and the pigs. Oh the pigs……
In essence this is a story of the heart driven by the quirks of families (and mothers) set against a backdrop of rural life and struggling farmers. I have to confess that in the end I felt that it was pretty well structured and the multiple story-lines, although not well hidden, were brought together neatly. I did laugh a lot even though I kept telling myself this is not my sort of book (one of the characters likens the unfolding events to be like being in a Jane Austen novel) and I was held in the car on multiple occasions to finish the segment. I think the voice of Lucy Scott had much to do with this. She delivered the narration very well, capturing the different characters through with different voices that seemed to fit them perfectly. I think this is really important in an audio book. A good story can be overwhelmed by bad narration – and a mediocre story brought to life by good narration

[[fangg+xuann] · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wild Weekend is about Miranda Marlow, who is a high-earning international town-planner and Oliver Hardcastle who is an organic farmer. Miranda Harlow is not looking forward to a weekend with her mother at a country-house hotel, but thanks to a teenage Goth, Miranda tasted a wine at Chateau Saxwold, love finds a way to change Miranda's mind...

[Phil]

Hard going