by Mhairi McFarlane

**3 1/2 stars** The curse of high expectations from one of my favorite authors who I mostly rate 5 stars, or, less often, 4 stars.

In some ways, this was a typical Mhairi McFarlane novel. Our heroine, surrounded, supported by, and supportive of a group of close and quirky friends, dumps or is dumped by a guy that is clearly not worthy of her after their long-standing relationship goes to pot. Roisin (Ro-sheen for us Americans) is also a typical McFarlane heroine: Gorgeous but doesn’t know it, good-hearted, intelligent, and funny as hell. They usually have had some difficulties in their youth, often with their families, that have caused hurdles and challenges to overcome before they can find their happy endings. Oh gosh. I’m sure I could compare and contrast this story with her other stories until the cows come home, but I’ll leave it there. I love her heroines, and I mostly loved Roisin even though she did things I didn’t always approve of or understand. The one thing that I love about her leading ladies is that once they understand that the relationship is over (usually because the guy is a real baddie) the guy stays dumped despite the fact that he will usually be desperate to get back with her, because she is so awesome. (Like I said, intelligence is a trait of MM’s typical heroine)

This one starts out with the group of 7 friends (they call themselves The Brian Club-I won’t explain) coming together at a rented country estate to celebrate a birthday, an engagement, and the fact that Roisin’s boyfriend Joe, has just had his script made into a highly touted Hollywood miniseries. Their relationship has been foundering for some time, as the more successful he has become professionally, the more cold and dismissive he has become to down-to-earth schoolteacher Roisin. Roisin has been starting to see Joe in a new and not pleasant light and that there is much in Joe’s character and ways that she doesn’t like at all. It is only a matter of time for her. On the last day of the party, time becomes up. Joe screens the first part of his new 3 part series for the group and to her horror, Joe has incorporated a traumatic and painful incident from her childhood into his plot that she shared with him in the strictest confidence. Without permission, warning, or, initially, remorse.

She’d known this day was coming now for a long time, but it was no less weird. Like the shock of a death after a protracted illness. It was slow, but fast at the end.

There are other similarities between real life and what happens in the film. Roisin starts to wonder if Joe is a serial cheater and liar like the hero of his piece. Who is Joe, really? Has her 10-year relationship been a lie? Has she been a blind fool all these years?

‘I always assumed you liked that.’‘What?’‘That he’s a Mean Boy.’ He looked at her with an awkward expression….Joe was mean – and Roisin ‘liked it’? She supposed she had. She thought he was clever. What did it say about Roisin, that she had chosen mean? How did you explain having fallen in love with someone who wasn’t nice?

Roisin must know the truth and knows she will never get it from Joe.

Most of the book is Roisin investigating, learning things, pondering, and dissecting Joe and their relationship. There is not a lot of action. Thankfully, we are not taken back into the past for a painful play-by-play of their past doomed relationship. The break up after 10 years together is not easy and Joe tries to get her back. But we know there is no danger of that happening. Roisin has moved on and eventually starts to see one of The Brian Club in a new light, someone that has been at odds with Joe for years. A good guy, who is even better than she thought he was when he turns up in her old hometown where she has been dragooned into helping her eccentric and troublesome mother at her pub.

Such close contact was a strange mixture of fireworks and security. That was it – that was what Roisin had noticed during the handholding. It was completely natural, and yet wildly exotic at the same time. Exhilaratingly new and already familiar. He was a safe place, full of danger…Her feelings for [him] had arrived in two ways: gradually, then suddenly . Slow, but fast at the end.

Gradually Roisin uncovers all kinds of truths including the truth about Joe. It is pretty surprising and bad, and the book concludes in a hail of drama and confrontation: romantic, family, and adversarial. Unfortunately, that all happens in the last 15%. All the rest is prelude, hence my lower-than-usual rating for a Mhairi McFarlane novel. As entertaining, interesting, and insightful as most of the book was, it was a little slow and lackluster in too many parts. “Slow, but fast at the end?” On a good note, I loved that The Brian Club remained steadfast and stable throughout (barring one incident that is mostly played for laughs.)

I have noted in the past that this author really knows how to end a book and this one is no exception. On the last page, Roisin, in the middle of teaching her English class, looks down and sees an envelope with her name on it peeking out of her bag.
It is a short (and fast?) conclusion but very very sweet and says everything that needs to be said.