Brake Failure by Alison Brodie

Book Information

Genre: Romantic Comedy

• Print Length: 295 pages
• Publisher: Clipboard Press (January 9, 2017)
• Publication Date: January 9, 2017
•  ASIN: B01MRQVFGA

Synopsis: BRAKE FAILURE is a contemporary romance, with humour, suspense and a kick-ass heroine. The story is set in one of the most fascinating episodes in America's history: the months leading up to Y2K "melt-down".

Blurb:

"Is it too late to tell him you love him when you're looking down the barrel of his gun?"

Ruby Mortimer-Smyth is upper-class English, rigidly brought up to marry a man from the pages of Burke’s Peerage. She knows the etiquette for every occasion and her soufflés NEVER collapse.

She is in control of her life, tightly in control. Until …she ends up in Kansas. 

Ruby believes that life is like a car; common-sense keeps it on the road, passion sends it into a ditch. What she doesn't know is, she's on a collision course with Sheriff Hank Gephart. 

Sheriff Hank Gephart can judge a person. Miss Mortimer-Smyth might act like the Duchess of England, but just under the surface there's something bubbling, ready to erupt. She's reckless, and she's heading for brake failure. And he's not thinking about her car.

With the Millennium approaching, Ruby gets caught up in the Y2K hysteria. She joins a Survivalists group, who give her a gun and advise her to stockpile basic essentials. Accordingly, she bulk-buys Perrier, Gentleman's Relish and macaroons. 

Ruby, far from home, is making Unsuitable Friends and "finding herself" for the first time. She falls in with a gang of Hells Angels and falls foul of the law. At every turn, she comes up hard against Sheriff Hank Gephart, whose blue eyes seem to look deep into her soul. She desperately wants him, but knows she can never have him.

She's angry at the emotions he arouses in her. Pushed to her limit, she bursts from her emotional straightjacket.

As the clock strikes midnight of the new Millennium, she's on a freight train with three million dollars, a bottle of Wild Turkey and a smoking gun.

What happened to Miss Prim-and-Proper? And why did she shoot Mr Right?
________________

Note: Alison Brodie wrote this story from first-hand experience. She lived in Kansas during this time and was stunned by the hysteria, unnerved that the US government was spending $150 billion preparing for Armageddon. As Lionel Shriver says in her novel, We Have To Talk About Kevin: “1999, a year widely mooted beforehand as the end of the world.”

Review: This is a book that will TRULY have you laughing out loud, as well as drawing you in so deep that you don't want to put it down until you finish. Ruby is a great character with a lot of spunk and personality, especially once she learns to love herself and to accept her inner wild child. I enjoyed the fact that the story was told from both the past and the present, giving us a look at two very different sides of Ruby at the same time. In some stories, that sort of back and forth would be confusing, but in this one it works splendidly. This was a new to me author, and I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Rating: Four stars

About the author

Alison Brodie is an internationally-published author. GOOD HOUSEKEEPING chose her debut for their Pick of the Paperbacks. The Scottish Daily Mail reviewed 'Face to Face': "Vain but wildly funny leading lady."

Alison has a criminal record for busking/disturbance of the peace in Piccadilly Circus; speeding in Spain and hustling in Athens. She lives in Biarritz, where she can be found speaking unintelligible French.