Who says you can’t choose your family?
When Flora falls in love with Jack, suddenly she’s not only handling a very cranky teenager, but she’s also living in the shadow of Jack’s perfect, immortalised wife, Becca. Every summer, Becca and Jack would holiday with Becca’s oldest friends and Jack wants to continue the tradition, so now Flora must face a summer trying to live up to Becca’s memory, with not only Jack’s daughter looking on, but with Becca’s best friends judging her every move…
The more Flora tries to impress everyone, the more things go horribly wrong…but as the summer unfolds, Flora begins pushing her own boundaries, and finding herself in a way that she never thought she needed to.
And she soon learns that families come in all shapes and sizes.
I received a copy of this book from Avon Books UK in return for an honest review.
My Thoughts…
Character-driven, this story focuses on Flora’s emotional journey, as she tries to be part of Jack’s broken and damaged family. Multi-points of view, showcase the tense relationships, within the family.
Flora is lovely, but lives to please, probably due to the lack of nurture in her childhood. This proves a stumbling block with Izzy, Jack’s seventeen-year-old, who resents Flora as an outsider. The story revisits a popular theme, but because of the characters’ complexity and relatability, gives it a believable contemporary and original interpretation.
Family, friendship, grief, loss and love are all explored. The second part of the story, set in the English Lake District, draws the story together and reveals secrets. Flora’s emotional journey is both, challenging and poignant.
