Mhairi McFARLANE : Just last night

Eve, Justin, Susie, and Ed have been friends since they were teenagers. Now in their thirties, the four are as close as ever, Thursday pub trivia night is sacred, and Eve is still secretly in love with Ed. Maybe she should have moved on by now, but she can’t stop thinking about what could have been. And she knows Ed still thinks about it, too.
But then, in an instant, their lives are changed forever. In the aftermath, Eve’s world is upended. As stunning secrets are revealed, she begins to wonder if she really knew her friends as well as she thought. And when someone from the past comes back into her life, Eve’s future veers in a surprising new direction...
They say every love story starts with a single moment. What if it was just last night ?

 

 

The cover of this book might lead you astray and make you think you're going to read a funny rom-com. I'd been warned and knew better, which is why I started reading it on a week-end, with handkerchiefs nearby. 

There are different parts in this novel.

The short first part, with the friends meeting and their banter, left me rather cold. I was tired and wasn't interested in what they were saying.

However, after the "event", the story took a very different turn and I have to admit that Mhairi McFarlane knows how to write about loss (losses) and grief and make you feel it/remember it powerfully. That's when you'll need the hot cup of tea, the cat and the handkerchiefs (more than one).

Then the main character learns something, and her grief takes another direction, making her wonder about everything she thought she knew and felt and trusted.

When "somebody" disappears and two characters go get that person, we're sliding comfortably back into rom com territory, in a nice and funny way. It stays mostly there until the end of the novel, with a different touch that explains the attitude of one of the main characters.

I heard so much about this novel that I had to give it a try and I loved it, even if I felt that the story covered so many different grounds that I would have liked more unity in it. Rom-com ? Grief ? Drama ? That's a lot, which is why i didn't give it 5 stars. Yet, it packed such a punch that I couldn't rate it under 4 stars, so there it is. I hate reading stories that make me cry, but every word this author wrote about grief, and Alzheimer's, resonated in me and brought back vivid memories. It's a really good book.