Crossed Wires by Rosie Thornton

Crossed Wires by Rosie Thornton is a delightful book of families, relationships and… crossed wires!

My book review rating: 5 stars – unique, funny, enjoyable – the perfect way to while away a Sunday afternoon

When Crossed Wires by Rosie Thornton landed on my doormat I thought it looked like the perfect book to accompany me on my week at the beach – and I wasn’t wrong. Once I picked up this unique and funny novel I couldn’t put it down! The lighthearted tale of two strangers looking for love sums up the trials and tribulations of single parenthood and shows how easy it is to assume you know what someone is thinking when really you don’t have a clue!

Peter and Mina ‘meet’ when Peter manages to crash his car into a tree stump and calls the insurance company where Mina works to report the damage. Over a period of months they strike up a telephone relationship, sharing the details of their daily lives while never having met in person.

This novel is heartwarming and funny at the same time – I found myself sighing one minute and laughing out loud the next. One of my favourite scenes was where Peter’s children recount the tale of how they play table tennis with the baby sitter – but because she’s so much older than them she has to play with a saucepan instead of a bat

If you’re looking for a great novel to escape in, with believable and likable characters, a bit of romance and a not so predictable ending then you should definitely read Crossed Wires by Rosie Thornton.

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This is the story of Mina, a girl at a Sheffield call centre whose next customer in the queue is Peter, a Cambridge geography don who has crashed his car into a tree stump when swerving to avoid a cat. Despite their obvious differences, they've got a lot in common -- both single, both parents, both looking for love. Could it be that they've just found it? CROSSED WIRES is an old-fashioned fairy tale. It is about the small joys and tribulations of parenthood; about one-ness and two-ness; about symmetry and coincidence; about the things that separate us and the things that bring us together.

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Charming. Enjoyable.

Review Date: May 7, 2009

Reviewer: Holly, United States

A real story, about real people. People with families you could understand. People you could possibly know, and certainly, people you would like. Mina, a young single mother, works each day at a call center for an auto insurance company. Peter, a widowed, single father with twin daughters, teaches at Cambridge University. Their worlds are miles apart, literally and figuratively, but when Peter calls one day with an accident claim, something clicks. The phone wires cross in such a way that two people who, by rights, should have never met, are unwittingly drawn towards each other. At first, they simply speak to each other on the phone weekly. Their lives move forward and the supporting characters: Peter's twin daughters Cassie and Kim, his graduate student Trish and two best friends Martin and Jeremy, as well as Mina's daughter Sal are delightful additions to the story. There are small, every day joys and larger, every day frustrations. Then, as their friendship develops, Peter is the one to whom Mina turns when she faces a parent's greatest fear. Quintessentially English. An enjoyable, moving read. Quite simply, what should be simply an ordinary story is, instead, a charming story about the ups and downs of every day life and the joy you can find in family and friends. I look forward to reading Rosy's other books.

Not (just) the light romance you'd expect

Review Date: July 6, 2009

Reviewer: Debra Hamel, TwitterLit.com

Peter Kendrick is a charmingly self-effacing Cambridge don who has smashed up his Land Rover's front end at the start of Rosy Thornton's Crossed Wires. The girl behind the phone at his insurance company's call center is Mina Heppenstall, who finds his bumbling and the fact that he'd swerved to avoid a cat charming. From that inauspicious beginning, and after another accident on Peter's part, a long-distance relationship develops between the two, though they're divided by the telephone wires as well as differences in age and station. But they're situations are otherwise similar: both are single parents--Peter's a widower with twins; Mina, now in her 20's, was pregnant at 17. The above summary of the book, as well as its rosy cover and the brief description on its back, would lead one to expect a light romance--Hugh Grant as Peter in the movie version, maybe, falling for a younger Meg Ryan type. It is a sweet romance, as it turns out, but much more than that as well. In fact the book is more about parenting than dating. For most of the book Peter and Mina's stories unfold separately, though the two update one another in weekly phone calls. They both have concerns about their children's social development, and both of them wind up facing a similar, more serious problem with their kids in the course of the book. What's nice is that the issues they face are very true-to-life. Their children are good kids whose small crises aren't ripped from the headlines material; their problems are realistic, the sort of thing any parent might face, and thus heartbreaking in the small way kids' problems sometimes are. Crossed Wires is definitely a good read, deeper than you'd expect and as sweet as its cover suggests. -- Debra Hamel

A lovely book

Review Date: July 13, 2009

Reviewer: bookfan-mary, United States

Crossed Wires is a quiet story of people who are not that different from you and me. They've endured sorrows and have experienced joy. They not only survive their sorrows but seem to strive to find joy in everyday life. Not in big ways, but in the small things. It reminded me of how just being a friend can mean the world to someone. If you're looking for something a little different and uplifting, Crossed Wires could be the book for you. I'm so glad it "found" me.