Dinner with the Schnabels

 Dinner with the Schnabels

Toni Jordon



Reviewed by Helen


This was a good story, told from Simon Larsen’s point of view he is an architect, husband and father and he and his family live in Melbourne Australia, they have just lived through the covid pandemic and it was not good to Simon, his life has change dramatically but he loves his wife Tansy and their two children Mia and Lachie and life seems to be moving very slowly for him at the moment.

With his failed business and the loss of the family home, Tansy is working full time and Simon is staying at home, his in-laws, mother-in-law Gloria, brother-in-law Nick and sister-in-law Kylie keeping constant tabs on him as he sees it, they are always pushing him, so to keep everyone happy he takes on a job to landscape Tansy’s best friend’s garden so as it is ready for the memorial service for one of the Schnabel’s family member.

He is given a week to do this in and there seems to be something happening all the time to slow him down not even counting the arrival of the half-sister Monica which upsets the household in Simon’s opinion he is not sure how he feels about her at all. Simon’s mind is constantly going back in time with his thoughts and thinking about the future and his dialogue is quite amusing at times and there are many laugh out loud moments with him and the family.

This is a well written story that is heart-warming and poignant as well as very funny, Simon has been through a lot in the last two years and has found it hard to cope, I really enjoyed the ending with his lightbulb moment when everything seemed to fall into place for him. There are wonderful characters in this story that are bought to life and I must be honest and say that at times some of them really frustrated me but I had to know how everything ended up for Simon and his family, an enjoyable story that I am sure will be well read.

My thanks to Hachette AU for my copy to read and review.

4 stars
Published March 30th 2022 by Hachette Australia