Book Review: A Vintage Affair

by Isabel Wolff

After a difficult year, Phoebe Swift decides to make her sabbatical from her job at Sotheby's permanent.  She uses the expertise she gained working in the textile division to open her own vintage clothing shop, Vintage Village.  The connections she makes with new employees, customers and clients help her to come to terms with what happened to her best friend and learn to love her life again.  The revelations all start with the discovery of a handmade blue child's coat hidden in an elderly French woman's closet.

This is a charming story of a successful woman who's live takes a turn for the worse after the death of her long-time best friend, and the divorce of her parents after her staid father gets an affair pregnant. Pheobe steps back from the life she has led for over a decade and creates something new for herself.  I wouldn't say this is an exciting book but most women who read this will viscerally understand what she is going through.  As you turn the last page and close the book, you are left with a contented feeling knowing that Pheobe is moving on and happy again.  This is not a book I would read again but I'm glad that I have read it. It's a good rainy afternoon or waiting for an airplane read.

A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff at Bookshop.org.

BIS Rating:  3 nightlights

BIS Rating system:
1 nightlight = put it down and didn't care to pick it back up
2 nightlights = finished the book
3 nightlights = enjoyed the book but probably wouldn't re-read it
4 nightlights = had a hard time putting the book down
5 nightlights = stayed up way too late to finish instead of going to bed

(originally published 17 January 2011)