Life Skills

By Katie Fforde

Book Overview

Athletic, outdoor type, good cook, good with people, wanted for work on the canals.... Newly not engaged and suddenly out of work, Julia Fairfax needs a new direction. The classified ad that catches... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 009952449X
• ISBN13: 9780099524496
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.4" x 0.7" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

wonderful

I absolutely loved this book!! I swear, I started dreaming about boats after reading it. The second time I read it, I had read it in a day! It's still wonderful everytime I read it! It's very well written, and an absolute favorite. I even bought it for a few friends for Christmas!

laughed out loud

This book is not for everyone but if you enjoy tongue in cheek humor, great characters, a good setting and a romance that is not jaded you will enjoy it. Makes a great listen on tape also.

Couldn't Put This Down!

A week after I moved from Europe back to the USA, I discovered "Life Skills" by accident at a local Wal-Mart, of all places. At the time, I didn't realise it was Brit chick fiction, which I buy whenever I'm in London. I just about inhaled this book. Katie Fforde writes so well, I could see myself with the heroine on this crowded and cramped hotel boat, maneuvering tedious waterways and coping with the weirdo guests. I stayed up all night just to finish it, and I was genuinely sorry when the story ended. This is not "War and Peace," but a fun, escapist read, which reminded me of my various Brit friends, most of whom act and talk just like Katie's characters. I liked this so much, I bought the rest of her paperbacks on my last trip to London! For those who don't know Katie Fforde's writing, "Life Skills" is a fab introduction.

Katie Fforde - not her best, but still 5 stars!

Katie Fforde turns a great tale - there's not a bad book in her bunch. However, Julia isn't as loveable as Fforde's other heriones. And that's OK, I suppose. You do wonder why Fergus persists to the end, how he could see the good that was buried under the surliness. While I didn't click as much with Julia as I have with other Fforde characters, I simply loved Fergus and once again the cast of supporting characters is a riot. And the whole idea of canal boats is so interesting to me as an American - sounds like to fun! Nobody turns a tale like Katie Fforde - be sure to check out her other books, especially Wild Designs and Living Dangerously.

The Best of Fforde's Bunch

This was the first Katie Fforde that I ever read, and I found it a delightful romp, full of entertaining details about running a hotel boat through England's canals. Delicious diction too, replete with modern British vernacular which will both puzzle and amuse American readers. The book is marred by a main character who is as frustrating as Kissy Mellors in Tabitha King's Survivor, unwilling to recognize a true Prince Charming when she seems him. Thinking I had found a worthwhile new author, I read Fforde's Wild Designs and Stately Pursuits and was quite disappointed -- her protagonists are all cut from the same cloth, and both books lacked the spark of Life Skills.