NEW RELEASE
Things I Wish I'd Known - Linda Green (2010)
When Claire stumbles across a list she made when she was 15 about her future dream life, she realises how far she has diverted from her teen vision. Instead of being a partner of a big city law firm, her clients tend to be small-time crooks. She's also still not particularly well-endowed, she hasn't spoken to her best friend Frankie for years and instead of being married to her pin-up idol, league footballer Andy, and living in a thatched cottage in the countryside, she's already been divorced and is now reluctantly considering buying a new home with her lawyer boyfriend Mark. Told in alternating chapters between the present and the mid-80s, Claire discovers she has to face up to her past before she can move ahead with her future. The story was totally different to what I expected but in a good way and I think it is best enjoyed if you don't know too much about the plot going in. It's a touching story with a clever mix of light and dark moments. And if, like Claire, you were a teen in the 80s, you'll certainly enjoy all the in-jokes about that decade's pop culture.
Yorkshire author Linda Green's next book, Things I Wish I'd Known, is about a woman who makes some life-changing decisions after she realises how big a gap there is between her teenage dreams and her present life. The summary says: "When Claire discovers a sealed envelope containing a long-forgotten 'dream list' she wrote as an idealistic 15-year-old, she begins to wonder how the reality of her life turned out to be so different. What happened to the handsome footballer husband, the high-powered law job and the beautiful Georgian town house she had her heart set on all those years ago? Recently divorced and going nowhere fast, Claire returns to her hometown, determined to get her life back on track. But could her obsession with past dreams and lost love ruin her only chance of true happiness?" It's out in March.