Reviews of One Day, Love Letters, The Love of My Life and We Are All Made of Glue.
One Day, by David Nicholls (Hodder & Stoughton, $38.99, pbk), is the story of Emma and Dexter and how they become (and remain) friends despite being complete opposites.
Emma is idealistic, intelligent and low on confidence.
Dexter is wealthy, spoilt and full of himself, looking perpetually posed for a photograph.
The story begins on July 15, 1988 with Emma and Dexter in bed (she can't quite believe her luck to have him there, while he's waiting for her to fall asleep so he can make his escape).
The date is significant, as Nicholls updates their story on this day each year, allowing him to cover a lot of time and personal growth without getting bogged down in details.
Time-jumping also keeps things unpredictable. What will they be doing next year? Will Emma still be working in the crummy Mexican restaurant? Who will Dexter be bedding and how will he screw things up this time?
Nicholls finds the right balance with this story: the characters are original, while still managing to strike a familiar chord, and he weaves humour and tragedy almost effortlessly.
I'm not ashamed to say I cried. A lot. - Laura Hewson
The bookshop where Laura works is closing and she is offered the chance to run a literary festival in a nearby village.
Asked to line up reclusive author Dermot Flynn for the festival, Laura goes to Ireland to persuade him and falls for his charms.
Things go awry - if they didn't, the book would end on page 120 instead of page 388 - but of course it all comes right in the end.
Not Fforde's best but a pleasant light read to gallop through on a cold evening. - Gillian Vine
The narrator, Olivia, has known her husband, Luca, and his twin brother, Marcus, since childhood.
When Luca is killed in a car crash, she is left to reflect on the events leading up to their marriage and those that follow his death; actions that cause unintentional but grave damage to all concerned and leave her irrevocably estranged from her husband's family.
A well-enough-written novel about love, loss and consequences, it is not in itself bad, merely inconsequential.
Yes, we all know that dealing with the loss of a loved one is a slow and painful process, one in which we turn to anybody with whom we can share the pain, even if the outcome is inevitable.
We have all read, watched or experienced this in many shapes and forms.
This is merely another example, and I finished feeling as if I had read it, or something like it, many times before. - Cushla McKinney
Telling the story is Georgie, who makes her living writing about adhesives for a technical journal but has a yearning to write Mills and Boon romances.
She befriends Naomi, an elderly woman who lives in a dilapidated mansion with several unhousetrained cats.
When Naomi is taken to hospital after a fall, she lists Georgie as next of kin and it soon becomes obvious that they will have a battle on their hands to keep Naomi from being evicted from her house and placed in a nursing home by the combined efforts of an unscrupulous social worker and an estate agent whose specialty is to buy cheaply and sell at a profit.
These goings-on take up most of Georgie's time and she overlooks the needs of her 16-year-old son Ben, whom she suddenly discovers spending a great deal of time on "The End of the World is Nigh" websites.
As if it isn't bad enough that she has to wrestle with religion, Georgie finds herself being challenged on her knowledge of Middle East politics by a Palestinian handyman and an Israeli who might be Naomi's son.
A dalliance with one of the estate agents gives Georgie a brief diversion from her attempt to unravel Naomi's affairs - made more puzzling by the revelation Naomi may not be who she says she is.
This is a well-written, light-hearted story with the occasional sober side.
On the whole I thought it rather unwieldy: the author packs in too many over-the-top people and situations, culminating in a farcical ending.
The overall effect was too much of a good thing. - Helen Adams
