Saving Grace by Jane Green

Saving Grace by Jane Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A perfect stranger wants her perfect life.

Grace Chapman has the perfect life, living comfortably with her husband, bestselling author Ted, in a picture-perfect farmhouse on the Hudson River in New York State.

Then Ted advertises for a new assistant, and Beth walks into their lives. Organized, passionate and eager to learn, Beth quickly makes herself indispensable to Ted and his family. But Grace soon begins to feel side-lined in her home - and her marriage - by this ambitious younger woman.

Is Grace just paranoid, as her husband tells her, or is there more to Beth than first thought?


On the whole I enjoyed this book; it was well written and had reasonable pace to keep the reader involved although the first quarter of the book was a bit boring and slow it did pick up pace. The main character Grace was, in my opinion, a bit weak and lack lustre, she had been married to Ted for 20 years and spent most of that time tip toeing around his ego and not really having a life of her own. Plagued by thoughts of mental health issues around the corner for herself (her mother had mental health issues) she seemed to live a half life with the overpowering, egotistical Ted.

When Ted's assistant has to leave and look after her sick mother, Grace realises just how much of a buffer she had been and her absence means that Grace has to manage Ted's moods and demands herself. Grace it seems could only cope with Ted when she had his assistant taking the strain and its' not long before she is pulling her hair out with having to cope with him.

Just as she thinks she will go mad she is introduced to the marvellous Beth at one of Ted's book launches events and is introduced by Clemmie Graces' daughter to Beth. They get chatting and Beth is looking for an assistant position, Grace is so relieved to think that she might not have to cope with Ted on her own any more she practically offers Beth the job on the spot.

Beth turns out to be rather more than Grace expected and soon she is regretting her decision. I won't say more - read the book.

It was cleverly woven albeit that Grace was a bit weak and gullible which didn't come across as real for me. I did enjoy the journey and some of the characters were likeable. I didn't like the recipes at the end of each chapter - why were they there? A bit pointless and annoying really. There were also some inconsistencies in the book where Green inferred that Grace and Ted had more than one child so I'm guessing this was just a mistake as I searched in case I had missed it but couldn't find another child.

All in all an entertaining read but not a satisfactory ending in my view; I give this one 3.5 stars rounded up to 4* for Goodreads and Amazon.