Review: The Sunshine Cruise Company

The Sunshine Cruise Company by John Niven
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Published: 13/08/2015
Author: John Niven

This novel is about two women who have been friends since school and are now both turning sixty. The women are slightly different as Susan seems to have it all, a gorgeous house, a long, steady and loving marriage to an accountant called Barry. But Julie, on the other hand has not being dealt such a fortunate hand, she has put her bad past of failed relationships and also failed businesses behind her and is now glad to have found some stability in her life when she moves into a council flat and starts working at an old people's home.
However everything gets flipped onto its head when Susan's husband Barry is found dead in what first appears to be a secret flat but is actually a sex dungeon. Barry's secret second life all comes spilling out as we learn that the led a double life as a swinger and ran up a fortune in debts that the bank is now going to take from Susan.
The book shows a satirical view on friendship, ageing and the housing bubble. The characters in this novel are described so well by the author that it feels like they are actually real people. Everything thing that he writes about in the novel feels like it could happen, this adds a great depth to the novel as it makes it much easier to get along with and to be able to visualise the journey the two women are going on. The characters are so easy to love, you get a real sense of what the author is wanting them to be like, they are two women who are helped along the journey with the help of a gangster called Nails and a wheelchair bound lady called Ethel. The author adds a great touch of humour and wit to the novel. This is the first book that I have read by this author and I will certainly be reading more by him!

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