Without going into spoilers, this isn’t really a romance, although there are romantic elements to it, it’s a story about a woman’s journey to find the truth about what she believed for the past ten years. You know it’s going to be good, because all of her books are good, so you can just kind of relax into reading it. While her female protagonist occasionally seems written to incite the reader’s exasperation, Roisin’s scenes with other women and the portrait of her flawed mother show a more deft hand at representing the gender.

Indeed, her blooming romance with another man after getting rid of her toxic ex is too instant for my liking. I question as I usually do whether the male characters would describe their emotional states as candidly as they do but this is a good read and recommended. Roisin is surprised when Joe seems to object to the break up, but she has doubts about the sincerity of his apology. Die Handlung ist einfühlsam und gleichzeitig humorvoll, was eine einzigartige Mischung schafft, die das Lesen zu einem unvergesslichen Erlebnis macht. It's billed as a rom-com, but I feel like it's more of a story about changing friend dynamics, self-reflection, self-empowerment, and learning to deal with toxicity in relationships, with a hint of mystery, and a side of romance.

When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. But drama still follows, in the form of her dysfunctional family and the looming question: what other parts of her now-ex’s show are inspired by real events ? I was invested in Roisin being able to move on, but I missed the connection to the romance that I’ve usually found in McFarlane’s books. This just wasn't one I think I'll ever come back to and, sadly, I'll likely only remember it for it's most outrageous element (the meta bit). Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes.

I think I miss the quieter books, the lower scale bits and bobs, though it's hard to properly describe that.

Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight.