Clear Autumn Book Review

Take Two by Danielle Hawkins

By Brenda Channer – Martinborough Bookshop

Reading is many things – from the deadly serious and cerebral to the uplifting and unifying.

Sometimes though, it is just a bit of fun! Recently while away for a short break I took the opportunity to read a whole stack of books and just before I returned home, I picked up an advance copy of “Take Two.” 

Not my kind of cover (be honest, we all judge books by their covers – even booksellers), not my kind of genre but I had just had a bellyful of my usual fare, so I thought, why not?

I read “Take Two” in an afternoon and it was great fun. Hawkins is a New Zealand Mum, Vet, wife, farmer and gardener who writes when the kids are at school. She has produced two previous novels and a memoir called “Two Shakes of a Lamb’s Tail.” 

She is funny, a little irreverent and down to earth. I recognised her characters as people I might know, her settings as places I might have been and her dialogue as conversations I might have overheard. 

The family dynamics are familiar too. The patriarch and matriarch of the family holding down the family farm while the 30-something kids finish stretching their wings and find their way back to the farm. And the long time (ex) girlfriend of the eldest son (who is now married with children) stumbles back into their lives and finds herself more at home than she ever was with her own, passive aggressive mother. 

Even the awkwardness of this situation has a Kiwi feel to it.

Every book you choose doesn’t have to be a literary prize winner – it could be an afternoon’s distraction that leaves you feeling good – like you’ve just had a cuppa with an old friend or a walk in the sunshine on a clear autumn day. 

Available soon at your local bookseller.