“Three best friends. One five-star hotel. Will it be the holiday of a lifetime . . .?
Imogen and her friends Meredith and Nicola have had their fill of budget holidays, cattle-class flights and 6 a.m. offensives for a space by the pool.
So when Meredith wins a VIP holiday at Barcelona's hippest new hotel, they plan to sip champagne with the jet set, party with the glitterati and switch off in unapologetic luxury.
But when the worst crisis of her working life erupts back home, Imogen has to juggle her BlackBerry with a Manhattan, while soothing a hysterical boss and hunting down an AWOL assistant.
Between a robbery, a run-in with hotel security staff and an encounter on a nudist beach that they'd all rather forget, the friends stumble from one disaster to the next. At least Imogen has a distraction in the form of the gorgeous guy who's always in the right place at the very worst time. Until, that is, his motives start to arouse a few suspicions…”
Meredith has to be the luckiest person ever – she not only wins a holiday for 2 to a 5 star hotel in Barcelona, she then gets the competition providers to find a way of getting a third person to go too. So Meredith, Imogen, and Nicola set off on their dream holiday although, well… let’s just say it doesn’t exactly go to plan. Before they’ve even left the airport, Imogen has managed to throw her buffet breakfast over herself and a ridiculously hot man and, it turns out, it’s not the last she sees of him.
It was at this point of the book i.e. VERY early on, that I knew I was going to love it and I was right. Jane Costello’s writing style is very lighthearted and funny which suits me perfectly – I actually laughed to myself on the tube more than once when reading this. It’s also this humour that, when juxtaposed alongside more serious/sad scenes, helps to bring you down with a bump, something I love.
I adored the friendship between the three ladies. They look out for each other, are comfortable with each other but, at the same time, will tell it how it is with no holding back.
Things don’t run smoothly for Imogen and, as it’s her first holiday in many years, you feel bad for her but, for the most part, the scraps and situations she finds herself in are utterly hilarious and I found myself laughing at/with her more than pitying her.
Throughout the story, Imogen frequently mentions her daughter’s father, Roberto, and is seemingly unable to get over him leaving her but never really reveals what happened. It’s because of this that she seems a bit ‘bunny boiler’-esque until she reveals the truth to Harry – the gorgeous fella from the airport, a journalist who seems to have ulterior motives thanks to the work drama that poor Imogen is having to deal with whilst on holiday.
When you find out Imogen’s past, you really want her to get with Harry and work everything else out – and you’re absolutely screaming at her by this point to take a step back from work – and re-evaluate what’s important to her and look at her priorities.
On a personal note, I find it hard to believe that two people would form such a bond given the time frame but that’s the whole point of a book; it can romanticise and steer away from reality.
The timeline of the book is very clear and easy to keep up with, making the book incredibly easy to read. Add to that Jane Costello’s writing style and you’re definitely on to a winner. The book made me smile and laugh – it was such a great, easy read and I loved every moment of it. I liked the characters and the situations that they find themselves in but, most importantly, I liked that they all went through it and became better people by facing up to the things that they had been ignoring – a life lesson we could all learn from sometimes.
