The Sunday Lunch Club by Juliet Ashton

I picked up this book because of the title and also the description of the book had me anticipating some huge dark secrets that can change the protagonist's life.

The first rule of Sunday Lunch Club is … don't make any afternoon plans.

Every few Sundays, Anna and her extended family and friends get together for lunch. They talk, they laugh, they bicker, they eat too much. Sometimes the important stuff is left unsaid, other times it's said in the wrong way.

Sitting between her ex-husband and her new lover, Anna is coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy at the age of forty. Also at the table are her ageing grandmother, her promiscuous sister, her flamboyantly gay brother and a memory too terrible to contemplate.

Until, that is, a letter arrives from the person Anna scarred all those years ago. Can Anna reconcile her painful past with her uncertain future?

What I had expected: Heartwarming family support & a dark secret to be unveiled
What I had read: A massive load of soap opera done wrong.

If I have to give a quick summary of this book, these is a quick list of the story that you will be reading about:

1. A pregnant woman in her 40s who is still lusting after man and her secret is not such a big deal afterall
2. A gay brother who is whiney and over sensitive about being gay when no one else was bothered by it
3. A needy, attention seeking sister who acts like a whore sometimes
4. A social recluse brother who has secrets to hide
5. An ex husband who needs help getting his girlfriend back (otherwise acting like a crazy drunkard)
6. A grandmother who had to marry a rapist and pretended that it was a lovey dovey romance encounter

Nothing about the Sunday Lunch left an impression on me. All I can remember are the whiney people in this book. Practically everyone in the Pipers has a secret and is worrying about something.

The author tried to cramp the 6 issues I've listed above into one book while these issues are in no way related to one another. Imagine reading a book with 6 different stories weaved in between each chapter. That was how I felt. 

The book is awfully slow and draggy. For the first 60% of the book, all I was reading were the continuous whining from the Pipers and the whines just kept repeating in every chapter. The story only picked up in the last 30% of the book and the last few chapters redeemed it.

Out of all the supposedly problem/secrets above, the only redeeming one was about Josh who faced his true self and how the family came to accept him for who he is.

Honestly I will not recommend this book to anyone.