An Almost Perfect Holiday by Lucy Diamond @panmacmillan @LDiamondAuthor #AnAlmostPerfectHoliday #bookreview

 

An Almost Perfect Holiday by Lucy Diamond

Published by Pan MacMillan

Publication Date 28th May 2020 (paperback)

Book Description:

It was supposed to be the perfect summer escape . . .

Down in Cornwall, the sun is shining and a row of three holiday cottages are fully booked. Em’s in the first one, with her blended family – fingers crossed they’re still together by the end of the fortnight. Maggie’s in the second cottage with her bolshie teenage daughter, hoping that some sea air and sunshine will reunite them. And then Olivia arrives in need of sanctuary, and perhaps the chance to work through the secret that has weighed on her for so long.

As the lives of the three women become tangled together, it’s not long before everyone’s wondering – will this holiday turn out to be a scorcher . . . or simply too hot to handle?

My Thoughts:

This book was my lucky charity shop find for the summer.  I was using a short cut through a local shopping mall when I spotted this one in the basket of books outside. Suffice to say it didn't stay there long and was soon on its way home with me!

Meet Em, Olivia and Maggie; three mums who are all having their own struggles with life and all it chooses to throw at them. They all feel they are failing at parenting in their own way yet by the end of a fortnight in Cornwall around the pool they might just be re-evaluating things.

Single mum Em is just putting a toe back into the dating scene and has met George, dishy single dad to 7 year old Seren. Olivia has 3 year old twins and is wondering whether life will ever get any easier as husband Mack spends so little time at home she's struggling to cope without a network of close family to lean on. Maggie has brought up teenager Amelia single handedly since her husband walked out years ago and whereas the two of them were close during Amelia's childhood, the teenage years are proving a bit more of a challenge.

The three women find themselves bonding around the pool at the holiday cottages they are staying at in the south-west of England.  The setting sounds idyllic - especially as they are lucky with the British summer weather most of the time they are there - but is a drive down the A-roads of Devon and Cornwall enough to get away from the stresses of everyday life?

I enjoyed this book immensely, reading about other parents having issues with their kids and trying to blend families together who know very little about each other. Life's never easy and no two families are the same so there are always going to be bumps along the way. However, despite differences in people's circumstances, there are common denominators across the board: as mums we often feel like we're not parenting as well as the next person. This story takes a look into the imperfect world of every family and shows that quite often we are all just winging it - or as Izzie finds out, you just have to "fake it till you make it".

Lucy Diamond has me craving a gorgeous staycation in the south-west although that's probably because my kids are young adults and far less likely to cause me the stresses that Em, Olivia and Maggie are experiencing! This one is a great holiday read so if you do get chance, pop a copy in your suitcase.

About the Author:

Lucy Diamond grew up in Nottingham and went to university in Leeds where she studied English Literature. After graduating, she lived in Oxford, London and Brighton, working in publishing and at the BBC. She now lives in beautiful Bath where she writes full-time.

As a Sunday Times bestselling author with sixteen novels, two digital novellas and a Quick Read under her belt, Lucy writes with warmth and honesty about the joy and surprises, as well as the complications, that love, family and friendships can bring. Her seventeenth novel, Anything Could Happen, was released as an ebook in December last year and published in hardback January 2022.

Lucy's website is www.lucydiamond.co.uk She is on Twitter @LDiamondAuthor, has a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LucyDiamondAuthor and is on instagram @lucydiamondwrites.