eBook Review: Being Netta Wilde by Hazel Ward*

Being Netta Wilde, written by Hazel Ward, is a #heartwarming story of #friendship and connections in the face of loss and heartache. It starts off on what ‘Should have been a good day’ for Annette Grey a corporate go-getter, who works hard to keep her family in the lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to. Yet things don’t always turn out as we plan and Annette’s life hits a huge redundancy-shaped stumbling block that leaves her wondering which direction she should turn. With her ex-husband having already commandeered her identity, her home and her children, she is left without a job (the one thing she believed she was good at) and without a life. According to her, she is a terrible mother who deserves everything she gets. However, things can often happen for a reason and Annette stumbles across a food bank thanks to an old colleague and a transformation begins. The generosity of Annette’s new friends and the characters she meets and helps through her work at the food bank, help her to re-evaluate her life and make some much needed change. This includes standing up to her vitriolic ex-husband and her children who take her completely for granted. Annette begins to realise that her unhappiness is due to her being far too removed from the person that she used to be. It dawns on her that to start moving forward, she needs to tap into her inner Netta Wilde. While some of the exploits of her former alter ego are best left in the past, Annette knows that Netta’s strength of character has been buried and needs to make a comeback!

What did you think of the book?

I loved reading this book. Although it’s hard to understand at first why Annette allows those closest to her to treat her so badly, she endears herself so much to the reader that you desperately want her to have a happy ever after, which has you hooked. We all know that life rarely ends up mirroring the stuff of fairytales. However, Annette becomes determined to vanquish the villain of her story. After years of being degraded and belittled by her viperous ex-husband, Colin, who makes it his life mission to leach off her and encourage her children to hate her, you really want Annette to catch a break. This break comes in the unlikely forms of her new friends and those needing help from the food bank. Together they form a force to be reckoned with and you’ll laugh and cry along with their shenanigans. Throw into the mix a new house, which has conditions affecting its sale from the grave; a wayward dog; a potential love interest; lots of jam making and before you know it, you’ll have powered your way to the end. That’s even before I’ve mentioned the twist at the end, which highlights the fragility of human nature.

Being Netta Wilde is an easy-to-read, heart-warming book that will have you cheering into the pages (or your Kindle). A great Summer read.

How much is the book and how can you buy it?

The Kindle edition of Being Netta Wilde is available to pre-order on Amazon for £2.99 here.  Please check Amazon for the latest price as it might change.

About the Author

Hazel Ward was born in inner-city Birmingham. By the time the city council packed her family off to the suburbs, she was already something of a feral child who loved adventures. Swapping derelict houses and bomb pecks for green fields and gardens was a bit of a culture shock but she rose to the occasion and grew up loving outdoor spaces and animals.

Strangely, for someone who couldn’t sit still, she also developed a ferocious reading habit and a love of words. She wrote her first novel at fifteen, along with a lot of angsty poems, and was absolutely sure she wanted to be a writer. Sadly, it all came crashing down when her seventeen-year-old self walked out of school in a huff one day and was either too stubborn or too embarrassed to go back. It’s too long ago to remember which.

Against all odds, she somehow managed to blag her way into a successful corporate career until finally giving it all up to do the thing she’d always wanted to do. Shortly after, she began to write her debut novel Being Netta Wilde.

Hazel still lives in Birmingham and that’s where she does most of her writing, although she spends a lot of time in Shropshire or gadding about the country in an old motorhome. Not quite feral anymore but still up for adventures.

For updates on Hazel’s books, freebies and various other bits of stuff you can join Hazel’s Reader’s Club.

About the book

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0947351XQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hope St Press; 1st edition (20 Jun. 2021)
Print length ‏ : ‎ 352 pages

Review by: Rowena Jukes

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* Disclaimer: We were given a copy of the book in return for a feature. All opinions are our own.