Tis The Season To Be Single by Laura Ziepe

The first thing I want to know about this book is if the three main characters all work on the same counter in a Department Store how did they manage to have a holiday away together?  This is referred to a couple of times in the book and it just stuck with me - we are invited to believe that they became friends through their work and somehow they all managed to get away from a retail job at the same time?  Okay, this has nothing to do with the actual story being told and is just a passing background information notation in the text but, 10 days after finishing the book, it has lodged in my head.

I found the main story to be a bit of a jumble if I'm being honest and there was quite a lot of frustration involved in reading about the three women.  I think that the main bone of contention for me was the title suggests that this is a book about people reaching for their own personal happiness without it relying on others.  Instead what we get is the very clear message that a woman cannot be happy without a man - friends are just not enough it seems, so much so that they lie to each other continuously and break their vow about the Christmas Party.

May be I am being a bit harsh as the genre this firmly falls in is, after all, one that promotes romance.  So with that in mind lets discuss the writing and the plotting.  The writing itself is what saved this book for me - it is well paced, funny and did keep me entertained throughout.  There is a good understanding of people and everybody in it has a distinct multi-faceted personality that is very difficult to pull off so I applaud the author for this.  On the whole the plot was reasonably good, it was just the message at the end when they all partner off that irritated me beyond redemption.

Would I read something else by this author?  Well, YES, yes I would and happily.