Brake Failure by Alison Brodie Review!

Book Details

• File Size: 2301 KB
• Print Length: 323 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publication Date: January 9, 2017
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B01MRQVFGA

“Is it too late to tell him you love him when you are looking down the barrel of his gun?” 

An English debutante transforms from Miss-Perfectly-Correct to criminally insane as she breaks the bonds of her rigid upbringing. Sheriff Hank Gephart tries to reel her in - but she’s out of control and she’s not hitting the brakes. 

What happened to the genteel lady in twin-set and pearls? And why did she shoot Mr Right? 

Brake Failure is set in 1999 in the months leading up to Y2K “meltdown” when the US government was spending $150 billion preparing for Armageddon As Lionel Shriver says in her novel, We Have To Talk About Kevin: "1999, a year widely mooted beforehand as the end of the world." 

The Author

Alison Brodie is a Scot, with French Huguenot ancestors on her mother’s side of the family.  Alison was a photographic model, modeling for a wide range of products, including Ducati motorbikes and 7Up.  She was also the vampire in the Schweppes commercial. 

A disastrous modeling assignment in the Scottish Highlands gave Alison an idea for a story, which was to become Face to Face.  She wrote Face to Face as a hobby and then decided to send it off to see what would happen.  It was snapped up by Dinah Wiener, the first agent Alison sent it to.  Three weeks later, Alison signed a two-book deal with Hodder & Stoughton.  Subsequently, Face to Face was published in Germany and Holland.  It was widely reviewed, ie:  “Vain, but wildly funny leading lady.” -Scottish Daily Mail.  It was also chosen as Good Housekeeping’s “Pick of the Paperbacks.” 

Unfortunately, Alison then suffered from Second-Book Syndrome.  The publisher’s deadline loomed and she was terrified because she didn’t have an idea for a story!  She found the whole experience a nightmare, and this is why she cautions first-time authors to write more than one book before approaching an agent.  She managed to finish the book – Sweet Talk – but it bombed.

While writing Sweet Talk, she moved to Kansas and lived there for two years.  She loved the people, their friendliness, their free-and-easy way of life, the history and the BBQs!  Sadly, her visa ran out and she had to come back to the UK – although her dream is to one day live permanently in America.  Now, Alison lives in Biarritz, France.

Alison has taken the exhilarating steps to becoming an indie author.  Her second ebook, THE DOUBLE, is out on Amazon Kindle with some great reviews.  “Excellent.” –San Francisco Book Review.

Alison writes contemporary romance.  She aims for a strong plot line, set against the background of a world-changing event, coupled with touches of humour, sexual tension, and character transformation.

She loves to hear from her readers.

http://www.alisonbrodiebooks.com/

My Review

This book starts off with the Sheriff Hank Gephart being found shot outside of a nursing home. 

In comes Ruby Mortimer-Smyth, a prim and proper English woman transplanted into a small town in Kansas. Hoping to have gone to Paris, France, because that is where she and her husband were supposed to go and live for his job. 

Ruby and her stepsister Claire, have always been competitive and no more so in the fact that Ruby was going to get go to Paris and her cousin was not. With the story being set up with the Sheriff being shot on the eve of Y2K, the reader is taken back a bit to the start of the story which sets up the characters in a fun and a funny way had me wanting to read more.

Ruby ingrains herself into life in Kansas the best she can even though most of the time she feels like a fish out of water, but along the way she meets and befriends a few different "characters" . The more she is brought into the lives of these different people, the less English and prissy she becomes. Plus she is also to rethink her life and what she wants out of it and she finds it is not what she has. She is not happy in her marriage and I think that is why she becomes enamored of the good sheriff. So did she really shoot the sheriff?

Told in a humorous and laugh out loud way, this book is so much fun, I loved how Ruby. for me being kind of an uninteresting person to a fun loving very nice but unhappy woman who goes from being selfish to doing an about face and becoming a caring loving woman. I came to like her a lot and the story was fun to read!

This review is voluntary!