The Lucky Escape | Book Review

Thank you NetGalley and Avon Books for sending me the eARC of The Lucky Escape by Laura Jane Williams in exchange for my honest review.

Last year, I listened to the audiobook for Our Stop, by Laura Jane Williams, and although it was by no means groundbreaking, I still enjoyed it enough to want to pick up her latest release. In The Lucky Escape, Annie has just been left at the altar and starts trying to pick her life back together. After a reencounter with an old childhood friend, she decides to take her would-be in-laws offer to still go on the Honeymoon, all expenses paid. So that's when she and Patrick fly all the way to sunny Australia and the cutest beach read begins.

This is the perfect rom-com to read by the pool or by the ocean. It has a great romance, with amazing chemistry between the characters, and it's great to go through this journey with Annie and Patrick. Both of them have to do a lot of growing and getting to terms with their life and, although we only see Annie's perspective, I really enjoyed seeing them both rediscover themselves.

Laura Jane Williams' writing is brilliant and it sucked me right in. I was entertained from the start and flew through the book, which was perfect since I've been on a reading slump. What I loved about this (and have been reading more and more of) was seeing characters in their late 20s/early 30s still discovering things about themselves, exploring new possibilities and seeing that, maybe, they don't have their lives figured out. After reading so much about people in their early 20s that have a perfect career, relationship, and lives (which is completely unrealistic in the grand scheme of things), it's completely refreshing to see people struggling with their place in the world.

The characters had great banter back and forth and that really pushed the story for me. My favourite part of the whole book was definitely their trip though. I wish we'd gotten more chapters in Australia because those were incredibly fun. The luxurious trip, the characters getting closer to each other, and the bliss that only comes with being on holiday.

Especially because, when we went back to London, I felt like Patrick's entire character went away and their chemistry and relationship simply vanished. I get that relationships can go through some struggle once you leave the vacation bubble and go back to normal life, but they seemed like completely different people and that kind of diminished my love for this book. I feel like it was an attempt to create conflict but it wasn't that well executed. We could've had the predictable conflict, but I needed it to feel real which it didn't.

Besides that, I still had a great time reading this. The writing was great, I overall loved the characters and, even if the whole story felt a little superficial (I wish it'd gone deeper at some points) it was exactly what I was looking for. A light, fun, fluffy, and the best page-turner to get me out of a reading slump. Highly recommend it if you're looking for a cute summer romance.

Love,

N.

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