By the time I was thirty, you see, I was supposed to be happily married and thinking about babies. I was not meant to be emerging from the wreckage of the relationship I’d thought would be providing said babies. A poor attitude for a girl who grew up with Rose Thornton as a shining example of making singleness into an art form, but there you go.

Jo Donnelly flees her life in Melbourne to take up a temporary job at the physiotherapy clinic in her small North Island home town after an unfortunate best-friend-and-boyfriend-caught-having-sex-in-chair incident. As if that isn’t depressing enough, Jo is ineptly assisted at work by a receptionist who divides her time between nail care and surfing the internet, and her new flatmate is a joyless couch potato who hogs the TV and is vigilant in her quest to prevent excessive electricity consumption.

It’s all a bit grim really, apart from the light in Jo’s life - her eccentric honorary Aunty Rose, who lives up the valley with her pet piglet, four dogs and two sheep. Rose was a wise and infinitely patient friend to both Jo and her bona fide nephew, Matthew, while they were growing up. When Rose is hit by illness, Jo moves in to look after her. But illness aside, it's not long before the mischievous Rose is playing cupid...

Warm, funny, beautifully written, intelligent and heart-warming, Dinner at Rose’s takes you into the lives of a (very recognisable) group of small town New Zealanders, making you laugh, love and cry along with them.

"A very Kiwi romance, Dinner at Rose's is a story with lots of heart and humour. It will put a smile on your face and tears in your eyes . 

                                          . . . I loved it."  - Nicky Pellegrino

About the author:

Danielle Hawkins grew up on a sheep and beef farm near Otorohanga, and later studied veterinary science. After graduating as a vet she met a very nice dairy farmer who became her husband. Danielle spends two days a week working as a large-animal vet in Otorohanga and the other five as housekeeper, cook and general dogsbody. She has two small children and, when she is very lucky, they nap simultaneously so she can write. Dinner at Rose’s is her first book.

PUBLISHED:     30 April 2012 - IMPRINT: Arena - NZRRP:            $35.00

Footnote:

The Bookman hears that Dinner at Rose's just sold to a respected German publisher for 25,000 Euros... not bad for a first-time NZ novelist!