Miss Read leaves her precious village of Fairacre for Greece! Further Afield indeed!

The summer holidays were meant to be relaxing, but unfortunately for Miss Read, she starts by breaking her arm! Just as she’s getting better, Amy hears that her husband wants a divorce – so that he can be with his mistress. To give both parties time to think, Amy asks Miss Read to take her husband’s place on their visit to Greece and away the two friends go.

The premise of the book sounds much more dramatic than anything in the Fairacre series so far (yes, even more than the Church being damaged!) but the book remains a calm, cosy read like the others. Most of the book is spent in Greece, with wonderful descriptions of the country! I really enjoyed this change of pace from Fairacre, even though I find the village extremely charming.

I’ve mentioned before that the Fairacre series occasionally touches on darker themes, such as the domestic abuse and alcoholism (both involving the Coggs, sadly). This is the first book where a darker subject is front and centre but I don’t know how I feel about the handling of the whole thing. It seems like the problem wasn’t so much as “Amy’s husband repeatedly cheats” but “Amy husbands wants to leave her for his mistress.” It’s pretty sad that the characters are resigned to the fact that he does cheat on his wife (repeatedly!), rather than this being an issue about his lack of respect for the vows he made with her and you know, an issue that does not need to happen. It’s pretty maddening because cheating is not inevitable. You just need to constantly choose to love (and hence be faithful) to the person you have made a commitment to.

A side effect of Amy’s marital problems being front and center (though everyone tactfully avoids bringing the topic up) is that Miss Read gets a lot of time to muse about whether it’s better to be single or happy. The conclusion? Both choices result in their own happiness. Amy is, for better or for worse, happy to be married (even though it leads to heartbreak over her husband) and Miss Read is happy to be single. I quite liked how the book explored this question over the course of the story and was fair towards both positions on marriage.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The sections on travelling and the descriptions of Greece are delightful, and it’s always nice to see the friendship between Amy and Miss Read. While I don’t agree with the book’s view on cheating, it was still interesting to see how other people thought – I wonder if this was the way of thinking back then or if it’s specific to Miss Read.