Earlier this year I read Someone Else’s Honeymoon and enjoyed it, so when I saw this book come across the screen I knew I had to read it.
Sophie thought that she had it all, she’s married her knight in shining armour James, and it seems as though things are going perfectly. At least, until she discovers him in the hayloft with stable girl Becky and they aren’t just talking horses.
Understandably devastated she goes to talk to her mother-in-law, expecting something resembling sympathy, instead she gets told that she should just grin and bear it. It appears that the only reason James’s parents allowed him to marry her was due to the fact that her family is wealthy – and I mean VERY wealthy, we’re talking private jet to Paris wealthy.
Fast-forward a few weeks, Sophie gave James a chance and he not only blew it, he decimated it, an explosion so big you could probably see it from Mars. So, emotionally destroyed, Sophie goes back to her parents and here’s where things get interesting.
James is a jerk and once divorce proceedings start she gets the chance to see what a mistake she made, it’s lucky he’s shooting blanks or they would have been tied together for life. I loved that Sophie doesn’t play the classic heroine and fall apart. She picks herself up, sticks to her “I don’t ever want to see you again” guns and sets about putting her life to rights.
The characters in this book all have dimension to them. We have the new neighbours when she moves out of her parents’ home (rather quickly, much to my relief as a reader); Katy, Elliott, Bronwyn, Brian and Daisy. Then there are her colleagues, especially Emily who is initially resentful of Sophie’s return to a business she left when she married a country gent. I love the way that her job leads her to her new friends, but it also leads her to really stand up for herself.
Ultimately this book is enjoyable, I read it in an afternoon, and though we have a slow-burn romance that turns into a super-nova, the focus is on Sophie finding her way back to the person she wants to be.
There was a twist in the book but I guessed it pretty early on, the foreshadowing was incredibly obvious (at least to me), however, the twist was not one that will make or break the book.
If I were to have one complaint about the book it’s regarding the ending. It’s incredibly abrupt. So abrupt in fact that I went back and read it again because I thought perhaps I had skipped a few pages accidentally (my cat has a tendency to step on my tablet and scroll).
