A Year Like No Other (2011)

Four women arrive to spend a year in Paris. Irish girl Ashling has always wanted to live in France, and is thrilled when her husband Kieran is chosen to work on a new financial project there. Felicity, a neurotic Englishwoman from an aristocratic background, is devastated when her husband Max is also chosen. She doesn't know how she'll cope. Taylor is a spoilt, prescription drug addict from New York whose husband Brandon has accepted the job too, and while she would rather do anything else, she has no choice but to join him in Paris. And Jazz is a banker from Germany who has been chosen to work alongside the men on the project, but she is reluctant to return to Paris having had her heart broken there years ago. The women join Sophie, whose husband Yves is heading up the project, and friendships are quickly formed between them all. While some characters thrive in their new environment, others struggle, and soon infidelity, drugs and deceit threaten to change all their lives forever. While I did enjoy this book, I felt that the events in it could have been spaced out better. The first four months of their year in Paris takes up almost 300 pages, while the last eight months fly by in less than 100, making the end of the book a bit of a blur. For example, one character announces her pregnancy, and with barely a mention of it again she is suddenly six weeks away from her due date. I also found some aspects of the book a tad unrealistic. The fact that Ashling manages to start writing a novel having never done anything like it before, finish it and get a publishing deal within four months, all while raising two little girls alone while her workaholic husband is never home, and spend copious amounts of time with the other women, seemed a bit improbable to me. The storyline is quite good, with all the characters developing and growing throughout the book, but overall I thought it could have been better. (LO)

Back to Authors L