Needlemouse by Jane O'Connor

Today I am taking part in the Blog tour of Needlemouse by Jane O'Connor, organised by Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers. Needlemouse is already out in ebook form and will be published in paperback on 27th June.



From Goodreads

Time to come out of hibernation...

Sylvia Penton has been hibernating for years, it's no wonder she's a little prickly...

Sylvia lives alone, dedicating herself to her job at the local university. On weekends, she helps out at a local hedgehog sanctuary because it gives her something to talk about on Mondays - and it makes people think she's nicer than she is.

Only Sylvia has a secret: she's been in love with her boss, Professor Lomax, for over a decade now, and she's sure he's just waiting for the right time to leave his wife. Meanwhile she stores every crumb of his affection and covertly makes trouble for anyone she feels gets in his way.

But when a bright new PhD candidate catches the Professor’s eye, Sylvia’s dreams of the fairy tale ending she has craved for so long, are soon in tatters, driving her to increasingly desperate measures and an uncertain future.

Sylvia might have been sleep walking through her life but things are about to change now she’s woken up…

A quirky, charming uplifting novel perfect for fans of Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Sarah Haywood's The Cactus. The feelgood bestseller about unrequited love, loneliness and the redemptive qualities of hedgehogs featuring the most unlikely heroine of 2019.

My thoughts

My thanks to the Publishers via NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review. I was also sent an uncorrected proof as I am taking part in a Blog tour organised by Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers.

I was more than happy to give this a 5 stars or 10/10.

This gentle tale was demolished in two days. It is an easy read that tells the story of Sylvia a 52 year old University employee, who was besotted and in love with her boss, Professor Lomax also referred to by her as 'Prof'. At the weekends, she loved nothing more than to help out at a local Hedgehog sanctuary.

But, life has a funny way of not working out quite the way we expect it. When a new filly (PhD candidate) on the block appears, it's not long before Sylvia feels her nose being pushed out of joint.

Will Sylvia win her man, the love of her life the Prof or will fate have other plans for her?

I enjoyed this story, at times I felt like banging Sylvia's head against a brick wall as it was quite apparent to the reader that the Prof wasn't that receptive towards Sylvia's feelings. However, you did keep hoping that he would change his ways and his feelings towards her.

The story is told almost in two parts without it being spit as such into parts, the majority of the first 200 pages or so are focused on the here and now, with the latter 140 pages or so being told with more info as to what had happened in the past, this does help in some ways to realise why Sylvia is the way she is.

I felt sorry for Sylvia, who was quite a prickly character and mirrored the 'needlemice' that she helped to look after. I felt that other people had helped to make her the way she was and that if she'd had a different past that she would have been a different person.

About the Author

Jane O’Connor is a former primary school teacher turned academic and writer. She grew up in Surrey and lived in London until she moved to the West Midlands in her mid-thirties. Jane’s PhD was about child stars and she is now a Reader at Birmingham City University where she researches children’s experiences of celebrity, media and everyday life. Jane lives in Sutton Coldfield with her husband and two young sons in a house full of pirates, dinosaurs, superheroes and lots of books. She really likes all animals, especially hedgehogs.