A Sandwich Short of a Picnic

Felicity Price

Random House

Otago Daily Times, May 10th 2008

In A Sandwich Short of a Picnic, Felicity Price returns to the chaotic life of PR consultant Penny Rushmore 6 months after the events of her previous novel Split Time.  Unfortunately, her life has become no easier; not only is she still trying to balance the competing demands of career, teenage children and aging parents, her husband Steve has just left her for the Conniving Cow, Jacinta, his supposedly ‘former’ mistress.   Hell, of course, hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Penny extracts a satisfyingly appropriate revenge using that symbolic extension of his manhood, his beloved Triumph Stag.  Any pleasure is soon eclipsed by other worries, though, as her mother’s advancing dementia and father’s failing health demand her attention, and then her own diagnosis of breast cancer forces Penny to re-evaluate every aspect of her life.

Although I have been critical of Price’s other novels (largely because ‘chick-lit’ is not my favourite genre), I found myself much more sympathetic towards Penny than I was in Split Time.   I felt a sense of steel in her character where I’d previously focussed, probably unfairly, on self-pity, and I genuinely admired her determination and cared about what happened to her.  I may not be a ‘chick-lit’ fan, but as such novels go, Price has written one worth reading.