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Lydia Laceby is a co-founder of Novel Escapes, a chick lit and contemporary women’s fiction review website. Since 2009, she has read and reviewed as much women’s fiction as humanly possible while designing, organizing and expanding the website from two reviewers to seven.
In her spare time, she knits cute baby hats, would pick cheese over chocolate–if she had to choose–and regularly cheats on her allergy free diet.
Lydia has always wanted to write and began her career writing a soap opera at the tender age of thirteen. It never aired. Redesigning Rose is her first novel.
Reviewed by Natasha Jackson for Readers' Favorite
After a brief conversation with her mother, Rose’s entire life begins to unravel. What she thought was just missing money morphed into the end of her marriage and a new chapter in her life. Looking around her soon-to-be-former home, Rose realizes just how blind she has been and she’s strong enough to not accept all the blame herself. Unwilling to burden her mother with her marital problems, Rose moves in with a friend from gardening class, Becky, and that is where Redesigning Rose really begins. Rose is struggling with moving forward without allowing the past to haunt her. Lydia Laceby constructs a wonderful cast of characters to help and sometimes hinder Rose on her path back to happiness. She paints the story of a hurting but very strong heroine who is unwilling to let the rest of her life be defined by one bad incident, her failed marriage.
Redesigning Rose should be a kind of melancholy tale of a divorcee struggling to move forward with her life but it is surprisingly uplifting and funny. Rose wasn’t just some depressed woman leaning on her best friend; Lydia Laceby gave Becky her just desserts with her own story line and allowed Rose to return the love and support she received. You have self-discovery, love, friendship, divorce, hot men, financial ruin, and did I mention sexy men? Laceby created a truly fantastic story filled with warm and lovable characters that have you wishing for the very best as the end draws near. Of course there is a love interest but it almost seemed secondary to the relationship between Rose and Becky, which made me love this story even more.
