I absolutely adore Josie Silver! Her books stay with me forever. I love the concept of “acting” I feel we are all actors in some way. Some of us get paid for it and some of us don’t. I love the idea of also starting fresh after turmoil and I think readers are going to love these themes in this beauties uplifting story by one of my favorite authors of all time

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. An intriguing premise, great characters and a well plotted story, a wild ride which revealed the secrets of the publishing world and highlighted the hideous aspects of the phenomenon of social media. I liked Kate and Charlie and of course the relationship between the sisters was fabulous. The author writes really well, with flowing prose and fabulous dialogue. It was sharp, funny, moving and emotionally satisfying.

However there were several aspects of the book which niggled.
Firstly pre-nups are not legally binding in the UK although judges can take note of them in certain circumstances. Kate was so young when she married, it could be argued that the terms of the pre-nip were unfair - so the horrible husband would not have been able to cast her off so easily or without a fair division of goods and chattels. So the rationale for her being so short of funds and desperate for money didn’t ring true to me.
The ex-husband was so uniformly one-dimensionally villainous, he was unbelievable.
It was even more doubtful that the daughter wouldn’t have sided with Kate after he treated the mother so badly - then and later when his sued that dreadful statement.
Finally, - despite Kate warning Alice how important it was that the secret was not revealed, she happily shares with the awful boyfriend who immediately sells the email to the media - and Kate says nothing but comforting words to her daughter. No - that was so unreal. Of course she would have forgiven her, but to immediately segue into devoted mother mode struck me as utterly unbelievable.

I would have loved a longer resolution for Charlie and Kate. The author spend more page time on the meeting up with Harry in the bookshop than the resolution between Kate and Charlie and I was disappointed.

Because of these weaknesses, I rate this a three star read. Entertaining and enjoyable. And I would read more by this author.