Essie has the perfect life, until Lucas Brook crosses her path and overnight her entire world is turned upside down.
Essie hopes she never has to see Lucas again after what he has done, but as her current run of luck would have it he soon becomes very hard to avoid. Not helped by the fact that he's devastatingly attractive to boot!
Can Essie and Lucas manage to work things out, and is the situation really what it seems?
I'm always very keen to get my hands on the new Jill Mansell title and start devouring it straight away, but this one has been residing on my to be read pile for a little while due to other reading commitments. As always, I wasn't disappointed.
The book opened with Zillah, the most vibrant, fun-loving 83-year-old going and instantly I wanted her to befriend me, the way she did with the other characters. At first, I thought Essie was going to annoy me, she was clearly unhappy but the need to be settled was greater for her even if it meant a boring life. Fortunately, this didn't last long and I enjoyed watching her develop as the story unfolded.
Although the ending is very much what one would expect from a novel in this genre, it is the journey of getting there that gives Mansell an edge over her peers. The road is rarely smooth for her characters, and often she touches on some difficult subjects along the way.
If you like a little more realism to your rom-com, any of this authors books are the ones for you!