In Five Years - Rebecca Serle - BLOG BLAST

Billed as the biggest love story of 2020 this book should, by law, come with a box of tissues. I’m not normally a big fan of romance per se but I was advised that this one had a twist that I wouldn’t see coming. Spot on! I didn’t! Intriguing and challenging. 

Blurb - 

 The biggest & most unexpected love story of 2020 

This is a love story, brimming with joy and heartbreak 

But it is definitely not the love story you are expecting...

Perfect for fans of Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and One Day, this heart-breaking story of love, loss and life will have you questioning everything you thought you knew about destiny...

Where do you see yourself in five years? 

Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan has been in possession of her meticulously crafted answer since she understood the question. On the day that she nails the most important job interview of her career and gets engaged to the perfect man, she’s well on her way to fulfilling her life goals.

That night Dannie falls asleep only to wake up in a different apartment with a different ring on her 

finger, and in the company of a very different man. The TV is on in the background, and she can just make out the date. It’s the same night –December 15th – but 2025, five years in the future.

It was just a dream, she tells herself when she wakes, but it felt so real... Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four and a half years later, when Dannie turns down a street and there, standing on the 

corner, is the man from her dream...  

Me -
It’s a relatively slender volume with a smooth narrative that makes for an easy read in terms of ‘words per second’! But the plot has some twists in it that are simply unexpected. And if I was Queen of the Spoilers I would detail the lot for you now with a triumphant grin on my face as I witness you gasping at the author’s audacity. But I’m not! Let’s just say that the book heads in directions you aren’t expecting. It’s a consummate piece of reader manipulation, willing reader, I should add. 

The two main characters, are Dannie and Bella who have a solid and unconditional friendship. That’s the backbone of the novel. It's the kind of friendship we hope we all have. I guess it’s kinda exaggerated for fictional purposes but there’s a point to be made so it’s necessary. They are both very different people. Bella is a free spirit whilst Dannie is more career focused, ambitious

and organised with a life agenda as well as a work one. Their friendship is put to a test. Not a conventional kind of testing. It’s pretty emotional. The other characters have their place and their roles to fulfil and they fulfil them very well. Even NYC is there as a minor character. But it’s Bella and Dannie who shine.

As to the title which is important; the five years of the title refer to something that happens to Dannie which demands that she must attempt to engineer aspects of her life before five years have passed. The blurb gives you the basic idea and I’m trying hard not to give anything else away but it does force me into a rather cryptic response to the book. Thematically it’s about love and friendship, self discovery, too, maybe. There’s some food for thought without it being preachy. and there's the story that doesn't follow the straightforward path you're possibly expecting it to take. And that’s all I’m gonna say……. 

About Rebecca Serle -

Serle is an author and television writer who lives between NYC and LA. Serle most recently co-developed the television adaptation of her YA series Famous In Love for Freeform and Warner Brothers Television. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California. Her bestselling US debut adult novel Dinner List was a Book of the Month club pick, Costco bookclub pick, and Bustle Bookclub selection.

I received an advance proof of this from Quercus Books for which I am very grateful. Thank you. 
And I was thrilled to be invited aboard the blog blast for the book. Thanks to Milly Reid for inviting me.  There are lots of us. Check out what we have to say.