A psychic predicted the exact date of Nell’s death about 20 years ago. So now Nell is in a luxury hotel room, in a glamorous gown, awaiting her end. She’s sold all her stuff, sent letters to loved ones and even had one last shag with the guy who came to buy her bed.
But then Nell wakes up, not dead. And she has to deal with the consequences of having lived like her life would end before she turned 40, having kept her family at a distance so they wouldn’t miss her.
This is a wonderfully sentimental and witty story, with some poignant life lessons and a delightful cast of supporting characters, including the sprightly Juno who she encounters on a bus.
Jessica gets a chance to fill in as the only doctor on an island in the English Channel. Maybe a fresh start is just what her family needs because her marriage to Fergus is strained and their kids are in trouble at school.
On the island, Jess stumbles across a secret that only some of the locals know – that if you sit on a cliffside bench as the sun goes down, you can go back in time.
Jess starts to repeat days to make things right in her life – and it seems to be working. Fergus is happier, the kids have settled in. Even her mother, Joy, is loving island life. But of course changing a moment in the past has knock-on effects and can alter your future too.
This was a captivating read, with an intriguing time-travel premise, an interesting family dynamic, and a woman trying to put everything right. It makes you wonder whether you’d risk sitting on that bench.
As Eve is a journalist for a wedding magazine, all her friends and family consider her an expert on the subject and ask for her help in organising their weddings. She has five weddings to go this summer and between crazy brides, a Wizard of Oz-themed wedding, her best friend inviting whoever she meets, and her brother’s over-the-top requests, Eve doesn’t have a minute to herself.
Additionally, her friends think that now she is thirty, it’s time to settle down. So after a clairvoyant predicts that her future lies with a man whose name starts with B, all her friends set her up on awful dates with men like that. Ben, the man she once considered the love of her life who left her alone at the airport when they were supposed to move to New York together, is back in London and in her life and all the feelings she had tried to forget start to resurface.
This is a really entertaining and funny novel. The characters are mostly likable and some of them are really colourful and make you laugh. The story is witty and engaging and I really enjoyed reading Eve’s adventures, wedding after wedding.(NP)
After a disastrous break-up, Leila bans men for a year and chronicles her single life on a blog. The blog gets a lot of response and attention and, against all the odds, Leila keeps her promise of celibacy until she meets Nick. Her sister, Tasha, has been married for fifteen years and has three children and a beautiful house and pretends not to see her husband’s continual cheating. After focusing all her energies on her wedding, Lucy - Tasha and Leila’s bossy sister-in-law - wants to start a family and have a baby but for some reason, things don’t go according to plan.
I loved the family dynamics and how close everyone is. The characters feel real and they are witty and likable, although there are a few exceptions. The novel starts really good and strong, but it loses a little along the way. Overall, with laugh-out loud scenes and dramatic moments, this is a heart-warming and romantic comedy that will entertain. (NP)
