Crash Test

The Audacity of Penelope Fern

by a name I have already blocked from my memory

Let me set the scene. I was on my couch. I had tea. I had a blanket. I was ready to enjoy a cozy contemporary romance about a botanist named Penelope Fern (yes, a BOTANIST named FERN, and no, the book never acknowledges this). The cover promised "a heartwarming story of second chances." The back copy mentioned a "charming English village." I was IN.

By page 30, Penelope had quit her job, moved to a village she'd never visited, bought a cottage she'd never seen, and adopted a dog that was described as both "tiny" on page 22 and "enormous" on page 28. The dog's size, much like the plot, depends entirely on what the scene requires.

The love interest is a man named Rowan. Rowan is a carpenter. We know he's a carpenter because every scene reminds us. He "carpents" his way through the narrative like a man whose entire personality was generated from a Pinterest board labeled "Cottage Core Boyfriend." His hands are described as "strong" eleven times. I counted. Eleven. That's more than once per chapter. His hands have more character development than he does.

The "conflict" arrives on page 112 when Penelope discovers that Rowan's family owns the land her cottage sits on. This should create tension. It does not. Penelope is upset for approximately six pages, during which she bakes angry scones (the book's words, not mine), and then forgives him because he brings her a plant. A PLANT. For a botanist. That's like apologizing to a chef by handing them a single potato.

The village is populated by characters who exist solely to say things like "Oh, that Rowan, he's a good one, he is" and "You'll love it here, dear, everyone does." Nobody in this village has a problem, a secret, or an interior life. It's not a village. It's a screensaver.

There is a subplot about a community garden that resolves when the village comes together for a "garden gala" where everyone wears flower crowns and dances. I am not making this up. The garden gala happens, and it fixes everything. Property disputes. Personal grudges. Penelope's commitment issues. All of it. Solved by a gala. With flower crowns.

I wanted to love this book. I wanted to curl up in its cozy little world and forget about mine. Instead, I spent 280 pages watching a botanist named Fern fall in love with a carpenter whose personality is "hands" in a village with no problems. The audacity of Penelope Fern indeed. The real audacity is charging full price for this.