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Having read The Flat Share at the start of the year, I was keen to read more of Beth O’Leary, and a friend completely raved about this one, so I thought I’d go for it next!

Addie and her sister Deb are driving from Chichester to Scotland for a friend’s wedding, with a randomer who also needed a lift, but very early on a car rams into the back of them. In the car are Addie’s ex and his friend, on their way to the same wedding, and so with their car not driveable, the girls agree to take them too. Thus we end up with five people in a mini for many, many hours.

The book then starts telling two stories in parallel, both the story of the drive, and the story of how Addie and Dylan met, fell in love, and eventually split about 18 months prior to this trip.

Only a couple of minor negatives: I didn’t like Dylan at the start, he was massively into poetry, something I’ve never quite understood and so just found him a bit pompous, but it wasn’t so much it was overwhelming and it soon settled down. My other apprehension at the start was whether they were falling in lust rather than love, but things did deepen over time, so I let them off.

But really they were nothing compared to the positives; it was really well told, it’s rare a book keeps me awake – normally I fall asleep when I read! But I found myself still awake at midnight reading 50-70 pages at a time and just flew through it, I enjoyed the relationships developing between characters, and some of the side characters were really fun too. A very enjoyable read.