My latest read is Madeleine Wickham’s The Gate Crasher. 

 
 
 

I’m kicking off the introduction to this book review with Kanye West’s Gold Digger song. It’s just appropriate considering the heroine of this book is a gold digger! But let me not get ahead. First I’ll tell you what this book is all about:

 
Everything’s coming up roses for Fleur Daxeny, as she goes through more rich men than she does designer hats. Beautiful and utterly irresistible, her success at crashing funerals to find wealthy men is remarkable. Fleur wastes no time in seducing her latest conquest, the handsome and rich widower Richard Favour. His children are caught up in a whirlwind as their father’s new girlfriend descends on the family estate. Fleur is not one to wear her heart on her Chanel sleeves, but she soon finds herself embracing Richard and his family. But just as Fleur contemplates jumping off the gold-digger train for good, a long-buried secret from her past threatens to destroy her new family. 
 

This is my second novel from her. The first was Cocktails for Three. You can read about my review of that here. But between the two, I would say I liked this book better. Still not as much as her novels as Sophie Kinsella but like I said before her stories, her characters as Wickham, is so much different, serious and darker even. if you like light reads, go for her Kinsella books. 

So yeah, Fleur is a gold digger. She goes to funerals trying to land a new big fish, aka the widow and she’s not sorry about it. It’s kind of her profession already. Some would find Fleur absolutely dislikeable because who would be drawn to a gold digger? Me? I didn’t dislike her not for the entirety of the book at least. At some parts of it, I disliked her a lot. Even had me saying “Ugh. You cannot be serious!” But really, for the most part, I thought Fleur is actually charming. She reminds me of a friend of mine who has that same sort of philosophy – marry rich so you’ll have a really comfortable life and just like Fleur, she’s still a nice and charming person. I only think that her character development was raw like her growth as a person wasn’t truly fleshed out in the book. 

Her daughter, Zara, on the other hand, even at 13 years old, she had more maturity and wisdom than Fleur. 

The Favour family were loveable. Richard, his son, Anthony, his daughter, Philippa and even Richard’s sister-in-law, Gillian, were all written nicely specially Philippa and Gillian. I thought both women were shown to have the most growth as characters as the story progressed. 

But while the Favour family were easy to like and adore, his son-in-law, Lambert, that guy was insufferable! He was mean to Philippa and he didn’t even love her. He was only after the family’s money.

I’m not too crazy about how the book ended mainly because of Fleur. I know it was because she fell in love and that is why she was able to stop chasing the high life. I guess I was only hoping she and Richard were able to talk about her “career”.     

Still this dark comedy book is a worth read. I would recommend reading it because it’s still entertaining. I rate this 3 out of 5 stars.