Anna McPartlin is a new author for me. This novel has been on my TBR stack for a very long time. I found it to be slow-moving even though a couple of the characters were interesting. But most of them weren't and I didn't like them very much. Basically, I felt some of them just needed to get their act together and grow up!

The plot centers around one year from the time Alexandra goes missing and the characters who are searching for her. One thing I liked was the humor which helped to keep it light even though the subject of Alexandra being gone was heavy. I didn't care for all the music references throughout the novel; I couldn't see that they added much to the story. I am willing to give this author another try even though this novel wasn't what I was hoping for. ( )

I enjoyed a number of the characters in this book. I found it slow moving however and struggled to get back to it on a couple of occasions. I found the writing style clear and consistent and I did like the music references scattered throughout.

The simplicity of both the characters and the plot was nice and there were no dramatic inconsistencies but this also made it feel a bit slow in places as there was a "well thats no surprise" feeling about some of the revelations.

Overall I would recommend this book and I will try more by this author in future as I had not read anything from her before. ( )

Not as good as the first one I read.
Alexandra leaves home one day, and is never heard from again.
Her husband, Tom, canvas Dublin to try to find her. At a concert, he meets 3 other women who all help him to find his lost wife.
Story of these 4 people.
Found the musician tie-in with the book really annoying. ( )

Jane Moore and Alexandra Walsh were best friends, but then Jane got pregnant when she was 17 and as her world became consumed by looking after her child, they drifted apart.

Seventeen years later, Jane learns that Alexandra has suddenly gone missing. She teams up with her Alexandra’s heartbroken husband Tom, her own sister Elle, and their new friend Leslie in order to try and find her old friend. Along the way, each of them learns their own lessons about life, love and family…

I enjoyed this book. I do think that the cover and title give the impression that it might be a light and fluffy ‘chicklit’ read, and while it’s true that this is an easy read definitely aimed at the female market, the subjects of loss, grief and love run through the heart of the story. Within the first few pages, the reader was introduced to several characters in different time periods, and I did wonder if things might get a bit confusing, but they didn’t at all, and the story then continued in chronological order.

All of the characters are well drawn, as are more peripheral characters such as Jane’s son Kurt, her mother Rose, and Kurt’s father Dominic. My favourite character was definitely Leslie – a brittle woman who had deliberately isolated herself from others, but found herself letting people into her life.

Jane was by far the most level headed of all characters, although she had her own demons to deal with. I found it difficult to initially warm to Elle, as she seemed selfish and brazen, but her particular story did develop well.

The story is told in the third person and we see events from the points of view of Jane, Elle, Leslie and Tom in turn. Although they are brought together by the search for Alexandra, the book focuses on the twists and turns happening in their own lives.

This is very readable, and while it’s not the kind of book I would pick up every day, I did enjoy it. Recommended to fans of chicklit and women’s fiction. ( )

My tags for this book are all negative, but the book is actually positive in terms of the ways in which the characters grow and come to terms with the very real challenges they face. I really liked how relative strangers became family and supported each other. Another thing I enjoyed about the novel was that the difficult things that the characters faced didn't go away, but they were able to find new ways to cope and thrive. I found that a very hopeful theme. ( )