The Gatecrasher

I love reading.  From novels to pocketbooks (tagalog and English) to magazines to flyers, and a lot more.  I have been reading for as long as I can remember.  (maybe that’s why I wear glasses, though I still insist it’s the genes).

The last book I read was The Gatecrasher by Madeliene Wickham.  Lately, I’m very partial to feel-good books; that is why I came across her novels.  Madeliene Wickham is also the author of Shopaholic series under her penname Sophie Kinsella.

The Gatecrasher features Fleur Daxeny whose life goal is to be rich and to achieve her goal she gatecrashes at funerals of wealthy people.  There she flirts with widowers and lives with them to eventually get a Gold Card which she uses to do cash advances.  One of the funerals she attended was with the wife of Richard Favour, a very wealthy man with 2 children – shy Philippa and young Anthony.  Philippa is married to Lambert who acts as if he doesn’t care about money but is secretly in debt to the bank for a large amount of money.  Before Emily (Richard’s late wife) died, the couple decided to give 5million pounds each to their children which they can use once they turned 30years old.  They vowed not to divulge this to anybody (except the bank and the lawyers).  Unbeknownst to Richard, Emily told this to Lambert.  It was also Emily who forced Philippa to marry Lambert – using schemes to degrade her daughter’s self-esteem.  Lambert doesn’t love Philippa and abuses her and only stays married to her to gain the trust money.  Richard then found out about it and forced divorced for the couple.

Fleur has a daughter, Zara, who is aware of her schemes.  Zara then stays with the Favour family along with Fleur.  She then had a fling with young Anthony. Fleur was on the brink of thinking that Richard is not wealthy when she found out that the later is a multi-millionaire.  She was able to get her Gold Card but in the end decided to stay with the Favour family but didn’t accept the marriage offered by Richard. 

My two cents:  this is a very nice feel-good novel – though it leaves me hanging. Did they ever found out what kind of character does Emily have?  Did Richard ever have the knowledge of Fleur’s background?  Did Philippa and Fleur ever become friends?  Did Fleur really love Richard? These are some of the questions that kept running to my mind when I finished the book.   But all in all, even though these questions were not answered, the book felt complete – the answers to the questions would be just some icing on the cake.  It’s a classic bida role with kontrabida qualities.

My Rating: 3/5 stars

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama