Today is the end of week 20, so it's time for the end of the week count.
For the week -
CHAPTERS - 137
PAGES - 1,655
For the year so far -
CHAPTERS - 2,952
PAGES - 38,706
Today's book, "Lady Beauford and Copper Varney come from very different social stations when they arrive at the same hospital in the English countryside and deliver baby girls on the same day. Wealthy in her own right, Frances (Lady Beauford) married into a titled family. Copper is married to the headmaster of the local school. Neither knows about the other until five years later when their daughters become fast friends. Victoria Beauford and Leila Varney soon become the focus of gossip because each girl looks like she should belong to the other’s family. Lady Beauford starts an inquiry to determine the truth against the wishes of her husband and the Varneys. Lorrimer’s very British take on class and family pedigree plays an important role in the novel as two little girls are swept up into what may be a terrible mistake. The innocent girls and the furor that surrounds them will have readers on tenterhooks waiting for the outcome of this painful predicament taking place long before the advent of DNA testing."
I picked today's book because I thought it sounded like a Lifetime TV movie and I love TV movies, the more predictable the better. Sometimes I'll watch the same one five times while half of my brain is entertained and the other half is thinking what's wrong with my life that I'm willing to waste time watching this crap. And the part of my brain that's entertained by it always wins out in the end.
I had a very hard time imagining this story taking place in 1914, because it was reminding me so much of a baby switch TV movie that I've watched 2 or 3 or 7 times starring Melissa Gilbert - I believe it was called Switched at Birth (you know the movie is going to be mind numbingly predictable when they can't even come up with a more interesting name for it than that). So there was a battle going on in my mind between 1914 and the 90's, and it was not a pretty sight.
After reading this book I'm convinced that the author is a fan of TV movies as well, because it had all the elements, the yuppie couple who has everything but love (the 1914 version of a yuppie anyway); the poor family that has all the morals and values; a clear villain that the author not so subtly tries to convince us we should hate; what are supposed to be twists but don't really feel like them because I could see them coming from a mile away (although it did get slightly less predictable mid-way through the book). The only thing that was missing was the really bad music that always accompanies a TV movie and the line, "I just want our old lives back."
Still I did enjoy today's book - although coming from me that probably doesn't mean much, especially now that I admitted to loving predictable (one might even say pathetic) TV movies. But this book didn't have as big of a cheese factor to it as most TV movies so you might still enjoy it even if you hate TV movies. My mind is having a hard time contemplating the last part of that sentence - hating TV movies? How is that possible? I've never understood people who have standards when it comes to TV. . . or books . . . or music.
