The Year Of Taking Chances by Lucy Diamond

3.5 Stars

I did enjoy reading the exploits of our 3 main protagonists - Gemma, Caitlin and Saffron - their lives are a million miles away from reality but sometimes escapism is what you need.  If you take away the fact that you know everything will work out fine for each character and ignore the appalling lack of business practices (one of my bette noirs in books I know) it is quite a good look at the nature of friendship.

For me the pick of the 3 characters is Gemma.  I really enjoyed the fact that her marriage went through a very realistic tough patch but that they were starting to work through the problems - all too often in this genre the marriage is either dissolved almost instantly or they repair it to be better than it was before.  In Gemma and Spencer's case they may reunite but there is still tension there and they are still working through the problems caused by his accident - it is a normal relationship in other words.

I couldn't really understand Caitlin's reaction to finding out she was adopted.  Once she had got over the initial shock it seemed like she was willing to throw out all the love and happy memories created by her parents and this frustrated me no end - I desperately wanted to grab her and shake some sense in to her.  Saffron is just immensely self centred and the whole thing with the letter had me rolling my eyes as it was clear from the outset what had happened.

The plot itself ticks away quite nicely behind the surface.  There are the usual number of happy coincidences and one or two surmountable tragedies but you never feel you are in danger of getting anything less than a happy ending.  What it does do well is explore the different nature of relationships - between partners, between child and parent, between friends and frenemies.  This was handled quite deftly and with a reasonably sized dollop of reality; there is also a lot of wry humour between the pages, not laugh out loud but certainly relatable to those of us who have chosen a more traditional life path.

A decent exponent of the genre that definitely entertains and does leave you feeling quite cosy.