A Parcel For Anna Browne
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Copy kindly supplied by Pan Macmillan in return for an honest review via NetGalley.
4 out of 5 stars
We first meet Anna Browne, a quiet but friendly receptionist at a London newspaper, when she receives a parcel at work. Anna is intrigued, she never gets parcels, not even at home so who could be sending parcels to her at work? This coupled with the upcoming “job swap” scheme dreamed up by management at the newspaper is enough to have Anna wondering what’s going on.
The beautiful gift in the first package gives Anna the confidence to take on the job swap she was assigned, shadowing the top reporter, who she might just have a slight crush on.
Anna and Ben work well together, her new found confidence shining through showing her fun loving and interesting personality, and a new friendship between the pair is formed.
Most people hearing about the package that arrived for Anna advise caution, who could this mysterious benefactor be? Why did they send such an impressive, expensive looking gift? What do they want in return? Could there be a more sinister motive behind the gift? But Anna looks at it differently, someone has sent her an exquisite gift that she adores and cannot think who it could be but would love to be able to tell them just how much it means to her.
The office is abuzz with intrigue when more parcels arrive, almost one a week arriving for Anna, no note of who the mystery sender is, but each one containing something so incredible that Anna can barely believe her luck. As the intrigue builds, the scandals intensify….is it Ben sending gifts to Anna to declare his intentions? Does Anna have a mystery admirer? Is she sending them to herself for attention?
With each new parcel Anna grows in confidence, she becomes more outgoing, people notice her more for the new person she has become and she is happy. It is fair to say that the character blossoms with the arrival of each gift, as well as becomes driven to try and find out who is sending them. There is also an element of memory attached to a lot of the parcels, they stir memories long forgotten about Anna’s childhood in Cornwall. Or help her remember times of happiness when she was younger during a troubled childhood.
There is so much I could say about this story, but I really don’t want to give away too much and spoil the book for others.
The way this novel is written is good, the pace is steady and flows well, I found myself almost speed reading at times desperately trying to see if I was right about who was sending the parcels. The physical descriptions of settings and people are very good, I could almost imagine the settings of the beach in Cornwall, the little shops in London described whilst Anna was on her hunt for her mystery benefactor, but also the descriptions of the gifts and their packaging and how delightfully beautiful they all appeared to be to Anna. So much so, at times I wished someone would send me a package or two containing a pretty gift!
I very much enjoyed Miranda Dickinson’s writing and I will definitely be on the look out for more of her work in the future.
I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys Fiction, Chick Lit, it would also make a good holiday read.
I would like to thank Pan Macmillan for the copy of this book in return for an honest review and if you would like to buy a copy, this book was published on 24th September 2015 . A copy can be purchased here A Parcel For Anna Browne (UK Kindle Version).
