Push-Me, Pull You: Finding Home In Hartnell By Suzanne Snow

My reading tastes are eclectic and sometimes, I feel the need to have a rest from some of the heavier, emotionally draining stuff I incline to, so made time for this easy-to-read romantic novel which provides pretty much what you would expect. There are stereotypes galore from Gil, the hunky, divorced vet, to Pippa, the practical, composed divorcee who never puts herself first, living with her typical teenage daughter, to the octogenarian riding round on a quad bike, the best friend etc. The predictability of the ending isn’t a problem either; safe reading like this is comforting.

Pippa is the London-dwelling city girl. An art teacher, she loves to paint as long as no-one sees the results. She is the daughter of an ageing rock star who is currently on the longest ever retirement tour and she felt the responsibility to step up when her mother died when she was young. As the oldest sibling, it seems she is the glue which holds the family together and is still the one they all rely on.

She can be irritating to the reader: part ice maiden, part angry tempest, part confused and part sympathetic...The novel opens as Pippa and daughter Harriet are en route to Yorkshire, having been asked by her devious father (we only discover how devious towards the end) to go up and ‘sort out’ a property he has there. He fails to tell her the property has a tenant, the hunky vet who doesn’t want to move out. Their first meeting does not go well and the air is charged with particles which change from negative to positive as the narrative continues (Mills and Boon is still alive and well). Both have a history and share connections with Hartnell, and both have hang-ups and a need to confide, but it is the lack of communication between them which drives the plot.

Hartnell is a beautiful village, full of friendly residents, a lovely pub and a very useful shop. It is farming country and as we all know, the local vet is an important feature of farming life. There is little wifi, however, which enrages the truculent teenage daughter - at least until she meets the animals and a dishy teenager called Alfie who gives her good reason to lift her nose out of her phone. She adapts easily to the rural life, muddy wellies and all, surprising not least herself and her mum.

The novel took only two days to read and warrants a comfy chair and a cup of hot chocolate (or two)It’s not the destination but the journey; you know where you are going but what route will you take? Pippa keeps seeing the problems and needs to learn to look outward, not inward, forwards, not back. She can be irritating to the reader: part ice maiden, part angry tempest, part confused and part sympathetic lead but the fact that I engaged with the ‘will they, won’t they’ scenario says it all.

The locations are beautiful and, viewed through the artist’s eyes and the writer’s palette of words, it’s not hard to understand why. The novel took only two days to read and warrants a comfy chair and a cup of hot chocolate (or two). There is the promise of more books to come in this series and perhaps they will explore the ancestry of the two families a little further. There is scope for the future of Pippa and Gil and a farmhouse which needs some serious renovation.


Finding Home in Hartnell is published by Canelo