Product Description

Angela Fytton - wonderwife, supermother, bedroom vamp and business partner - has been unceremoniously dumped. Like many a good wife before her she has been swapped by her husband for a younger model. One day, she knows, her husband will return. Meanwhile she yields herself up to the notion that country life is pure and good and that country people are next to angels - but on moving to her country idyll, she discovers this is very far from the truth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #123816 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Angela Fytton (éée Lister) is the perfect wife and mother. Involved and interested in her husband Ian's business, capable mother, utterly together housewife and--even after two children--demon, cellulite-free lover. So it's rather a shock to her system when she's dumped for the younger, determinedly helpless dentist Belinda (Binnie), who Ian meets when she trips over her stilettos in front of him at a conference.

But Angela is a very resourceful woman and she's determined to get Ian back. Abandoning her two standard-issue selfish teenagers Claire and Andrew to their father and "fluffy" new stepmother (or more accurately, vice versa), she quits West London for the pure, spiritual country delights of Somerset; as she explains to Ian, Claire and Andrew over dinner, "You know, ancient forces drawing me back to my roots and all that ...".

Here, she believes, the people are unspoiled, honest and steeped in tradition. Or so she thinks. What is it that Wanda and Dave-the-Bread next door have got to hide? What's elderly Dr Tichborne up to with his binoculars? Why doesn't Sammy the pigman bother to wear his false teeth? And is the new young vicar really screened by the shrubs when he exercises starkers in the vicarage garden?

From Mavis Cheek, prize-winning author of Pause Between Acts, Janice Gets Sexy and Three Men on a Plane, a laugh-out-loud tale of self-discovery, women's history (check out the epigraphs at the start of each chapter), the comforts of tradition and joys of progress--and the benefits of getting it wrong. Just occasionally. --Lisa Gee

Amazon.co.uk Review
Angela Fytton (née Lister) is the perfect wife and mother. Involved and interested in her husband Ian's business, capable mother, utterly together housewife and--even after two children--demon, cellulite-free lover. So it's rather a shock to her system when she's dumped for the younger, determinedly helpless dentist Belinda (Binnie), who Ian meets when she trips over her stilettos in front of him at a conference.

But Angela is a very resourceful woman and she's determined to get Ian back. Abandoning her two standard-issue selfish teenagers Claire and Andrew to their father and "fluffy" new stepmother (or more accurately, vice versa), she quits West London for the pure, spiritual country delights of Somerset; as she explains to Ian, Claire and Andrew over dinner, "You know, ancient forces drawing me back to my roots and all that ..."."

Here, she believes, the people are unspoiled, honest and steeped in tradition. Or so she thinks. What is it that Wanda and Dave-the-Bread next door have got to hide? What's elderly Dr. Tichborne up to with his binoculars? Why doesn't Sammy the pigman bother to wear his false teeth? And is the new young vicar really screened by the shrubs when he exercises starkers in the vicarage garden?

From Mavis Cheek, prize-winning author of Pause Between Acts, Janice Gets Sexy and Three Men on a Plane, a laugh-out-loud tale of self-discovery, women's history (check out the epigraphs at the start of each chapter), the comforts of tradition and joys of progress--and the benefits of getting it wrong. Just occasionally.Lisa Gee

From the Author
What were my reasons ?
What were my reasons for rewriting the classic tale of Woman's Revenge?

Oddly enough I didn't think that I had. I wanted to write about a married woman who felt she had put nearly everything into her marriage and was feistily devastated by the terrible shock of losing her husband to another (younger) woman. Angela Fytton wanted her husband back. It was less a revenge and more a strategy to achieve that end. She was wise in a rather baleful way. She knew that new love can be fragile under fire. A lot of women who have been dumped at a certain age say they don't really want revenge (though that, as incidental, must be sweet) they want their man and their marriage back. But all gains are losses (and vice versa)--in order to get her husband back she mus break up another family--a little moral conundrum for her to work out. And all losses are gains--to lose her husband is to gain a freedom (even if she thinks she doesn't want it) and in among the farce and the frolics of what takes place in the country when she moves there is a journey towards wisdom for her too.

Customer Reviews

As a new country bumpkin this mirrored my experience
This book perfectly shares the experience of living in a country village. The shock of a dramatic change in life circumstances, followed by self - imposed exile in order to ostracize demons and restore self - esteem is beautifully and amusingly recounted. The descriptions of country people - in cases caricatures of the way we idealise the countryside and its inhabitants - are hilarious and yet very poignant. I found that I could not put this book down, and it explained some of the goings on in my roof space too! Some country recipes sounded gorgeous, while others were definitely not to be tested. The reality of a country existence during hardship was only too realistically conveyed. Yet, the ideal of a country idyll was created and inspired. I know now why I too live in a rural environment - despite the rain! A wonderful book, that is a must on any readers list.

The dumped wife hits back again!
I enjoyed this tale of a dumped wife reacting positively to one of life's unfairest blows, and winning, more or less.

Angela met Ian at University and from then on their fortunes were joined. Angela was arguably the major force in building a new business as well as being supermum and superwife. But the wiles of petite dentist(e) Belinda destabilise this perfect match.

One of the subtexts of this novel is the total subjugation of women in our history and culture, and the comparison is made with the break-up of a marriage and the contrasting effects on ex-husband and ex-wife. Angela is driven from London by the hostility of her former Sloane Ranger and Stepford friends.

Thinking, erroneously in this case, that she will meet good folk in the country, she heads off to Somerset and makes a reasonable fist out of being a countrywoman. Meanwhile she is pleased to hear that in London her selfish teenager children are driving their new stepmother crazy.

Angela learns how to make excellent beer but makes serious mistakes in other domestic matters, but it's enough that her ex-husband still holds a torch for her.

Mrs Fytton reminds me most strongly of Mr Weston's Good Wine by T F Powys and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon, so if you like those books you will like Mrs Fytton.

Two loose ends I take the author to task on: Angela manufactures some revolting candles without ever checking on what she's doing, and she fails to react when a neighbour tries to kill her by giving her some poisonous herbs. At the end of the book the poison is still on the kitchen shelf.

In summary: extremely readable with lurking humour, and an educational trip into social history
thrown in as well.

Mrs. Fyttons Country Life
Nice book. You find out that things are not always what they appear and every one of us, no matter who we are learn that lesson at one time or another.

This book has a few extremely funny bits mixed in with deeper and darker truths about what we see and how we preceive it.

The quotes that preface each chapter give you a hint of what may or may not happen in a cryptic fashion that keep you guessing but not too much. The writing style is easy to follow and you actually feel like you are living in Church Ale House in the County Somerset.

This book is an excellent read and I am very eager to read more books by Mavis Cheek.