The Choral SocietyPrue LeithLabel: Quercus PublishingDescription: Three single women in their fifties meet when they join a choir. Lucy recently widowed is a cook and food journalist; Joanna a successful business woman never married; Rebecca is a divorced interior decorator. Each of the women is at a crossroads and they quickly form a bond. The trio decide to combine their talents to restore a crumbling pile in Cornwall and turn it into a cookery school and spa. The project brings its own conflicts both professional and personal. The novel's themes touch on the sustaining power of female friendship and how a woman copes with mid life and onwards. Prue's narrative voice is warm witty wise very accessible. Her characters are sympathetic and engaging: very different women but each with demons to face as she gets older and confronts a future without - perhaps - a man in it. Her knowledge of food and business adds detail and zest enriching an already compelling tale.
