Helen, Caro, and Kay have been friends for over three decades. At middle-age they’ve all found that life didn’t exactly turn out how they imagined. Helen who was the fun loving risk taker, lives her life on the sidelines, forever buying milk, while her husband climbs mountains. Caro who was the quiet achiever, has a stressful if lucrative career, but is childless and without the man she wanted. Kay is divorced, and run off her feet looking after her elderly parents, and her 22-year old son.
Then Caro persuades the others to come with her to Cyprus. Their holiday changes everything. Kay finds herself mediating between Helen and Caro, and in between she sleeps. Helen finds a passion for sailing with the help of a Greek, middle-aged hunk. And Caro? Caro is on a mission. She has a very specific reason for the visit to Cyprus. Both Caro’s and Helen’s decisions will test the friendship between these three.
This is a great debut novel, a good women’s fiction beach read. There is lighthearted humor, but also questions of a deeper kind. If you are in your midlife, old enough to know that life doesn’t turn out according to our youthful dreams. If you’d like to take a believable journey with three believable women for emotional connection, sunny escape, and an entertaining holiday that slowly builds to a satisfying collision, I think you’ll enjoy this novel.
All three women get to have their P O V’s but this was not so much Kay’s story as Caro’s and Helen’s. And at least for me, Helen took center stage. It will be interesting to see what happens next in their lives. I look forward to Cary’s upcoming novel, Midlife Baby. This was another audio book for me, well narrated by Lisa Armytage.
