Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan was published in 2002 and I suppose it’s what is generally known as chick-lit, not my usual fare, but I just couldn’t resist buying it because of the title. I had imagined that the revenge would take the shape of cutting up an erring husband’s clothes, filling his car with manure or delivering his precious vintage wine collection to the doorsteps of everyone in the village, or some such thing, but no such luck.

This book was a good idea which ended up being too polite for words and missed out on such a lot of possibilities.

In fact I read on thinking that surely the wife would get her revenge eventually but she never did really. She almost got there but every time she was consumed with rage at Minty, her one time friend and assistant who had nicked her husband, job and home, she ended up calming down and seeing things from Minty’s perspective. So, no fun at all.

Rose had been married to Nathan for over 25 years and they had two grown up children. Nathan is needy and self-obsessed, Rose doesn’t tell him how wonderful he is often enough. Minty who is more than 20 years younger than Rose and wears teeny skirts with minuscule tops and what I call f**k me shoes wants what her boss Rose has and so just walks all over her.

Before the book begins there is printed on one page: Revenge is living well, apparently it’s an old Spanish proverb. Personally I would have dug out a nail gun and nailed Nathan, the husband, to the floorboards, but that’s just me!