Book info

• Title Sail Away
• Author Celia Imrie
• Year 2018
• Genre Mystery

The phone hasn't rung for months. Suzy Marshall is discovering that work can be sluggish for an actress over sixty – even for the former star of a 1980s TV series. So when she's offered the plum role of Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest in Zurich, it seems like a godsend. Until, that is, the play is abruptly cancelled in suspicious circumstances, and Suzy is forced to take a job on a cruise ship to get home. Meanwhile Amanda Herbert finds herself homeless in rainy Clapham. Her flat purchase has fallen through, and her children are absorbed in their own dramas. Then she spots an advertisement for an Atlantic cruise, and realises a few weeks on-board would tide her over – and save her money – until the crisis is solved. As the two women set sail on a new adventure, neither can possibly predict the strange characters and dodgy dealings they will encounter – nor the unexpected rewards they will reap.

Thoughts

I’ve enjoyed Celia Imrie’s books before, the series following some ex-pats in the south of France is great. This one follows a different set of characters but still in that fish-out-of-water setting. This time two independent woman end up with their lives intwined… one an actress struggling to find work and ending up on a cruise ship, the other a woman between houses that ends up on the same ship to pass the time. Beneath it all is some awful criminal activity and everything eventually becomes clear. I enjoyed it, it got a bit confusing and chaotic towards the end, the pacing was a bit slow to start and hurried to finish, but overall a good read.

Rating: 3 / 5