Buffy is sick of city life with its traffic, parking issues and rudeness so, when a dear old friend dies and leaves him her bed-and-breakfast guesthouse in rural Wales, he decides it's time for a change. In the face of family disbelief, he ups-sticks and moves to the countryside.
Myrtle House, it turns out, is ramshackle, and the Welsh town of Knockton prone to amazingly high rainfall. It's hardly a recipe for success, yet Buffy remains undaunted.
He hits on the idea of running Courses for Divorces, holidays for people who have recently split from their partners and need to bone up on essential life skills - basic car maintenance, cooking for beginners, gardening, etc.
The bookings flood in, as does a mildly confusing abundance of characters. There is Harold, whose wife has run off with a woman, a romantically challenged makeup artist called Amy, hypochondriac Andy and ageing, disappointed Monica whose lover has stayed with his wife. Soon the twin beds in Myrtle House are seeing a lot of action and the air is positively reeking of romance.
This is a second appearance for the character of Buffy in a Moggach novel - he was also in The Ex-Wives - and although you don't need to have read that book to enjoy this one, Buffy does have a complicated romantic past so I was grateful for the handy reference guide provided at the beginning.
Heartbreak Hotel is a likeable book that's warm and funny. Picking it up to read in the evenings felt like settling down with a lovely old friend. It's comfort reading, really, with a Jilly Cooperish jolliness but with deeper themes - late-life loneliness is a big one, as is small-town economic gloom.
I suppose a cynical person might see this new novel as a bid to cash in on the success of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel but I was too charmed by Moggach's wit and wisdom to be thinking like that.
And Buffy, the rascally old thespian, surely has heaps of potential for further fictional romps.
