Tuesday 5 June 2018

Blog Tour ~ The Scent of You by Maggie Alderson



Jaffareadstoo is thrilled to be hosting a stop on The Scent of You Blog Tour



32334780
Harper Collins
14 June 2018

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book and the invitation to be part of the blog tour

What's it all about..

Meet Polly Masterson-Mackay. She’s a successful blogger about perfume – a passion since childhood. She’s also a yoga teacher, the mother of two grown-up children and is happily married to husband, David. At least that’s what she thinks until he announces that he needs some space and promptly vanishes. 

As Polly grapples with her bewildering situation, she clings to a few new friends to keep her going – Shirlee, the loudmouthed yoga student; Guy, the mysterious, infuriating and hugely talented perfumer; and Edward, an old flame from university. 

And while she distracts herself with the heady world of luxury perfume, Polly knows that she can’t keep reality at bay forever. Eventually she is forced to confront some difficult truths: about her husband, herself and who she really wants to be.

My thoughts about it..

Polly is placed in an impossible position when David, her husband of twenty four years tells her that he needs to spend some time alone without any contact with her or his children. In total bewilderment, and with little clue as to his whereabouts, Polly and her grown up children, Clemmie and Lucas, try to make sense of David's unusual behaviour however, with no real contact, it’s extremely difficult to know what to do, so for a while they do nothing.  Polly turns to her life as a successful perfume blogger and Yoga instructor and gradually with the help of her friends she starts to make something of a new life for herself, but the mystery surrounding David’s disappearance continues to be a vital part in the story.

The author writes well and lets the story move along at an interesting pace with lots of quirky characters who add humour and who allow the story to move away from what’s happening in Polly’s life, although she always remains centre stage, with everything happening around her. Shirlee, Polly’s American friend and fellow yoga enthusiast, is loud and brash, but adds some nice flashes of humour into the story. I especially liked, Guy, a perfumier with a captivating way of creating the most exquisite scent. I don’t use perfume very much, as far too many of them give me a headache, so I found Polly’s enthusiastic blog posts about the emotional response to fragrances really fascinating. The story, however, is not all about perfume as there’s a rather unusual aspect about what’s really going on with Polly’s husband, which I think surprised me the most as I didn’t know what to expect when the reasons for his unusual behaviour starts to emerge.

The Scent of You is a character focused, thought-provoking family drama with some lovely light touches, a smattering of romance and enough dark undertones to add necessary depth. It’s a perfect long-haul flight read or a sitting by the pool with an ice cold margarita type of story.






Maggie Alderson was born in London, brought up in Staffordshire and educated at the University of St Andrews. She has edited four magazines including ELLE and ES in London; Cleo and Mode in Sydney. She also worked on the Sydney Morning Herald and currently writes for the Daily Telegraph. 

Maggie is the author of nine novels and lives in Hastings Old Town on the south coast, with her husband and daughter.


Twitter  @MaggieA #TheScentOfYou





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