Contemporary Romance published by Atria Books 10 Mar 20
When you read a book as good as In Five Years, you hope against all hope that the author is really that good, in both her backlist and future releases. Rebecca Serle has set the bar extremely high for herself with this book, an emotional story that gives a look five years into the future, but when that time arrives, is what was seen really what happens? Or, as they say, can looks be deceiving?
Dannie plans everything in her life, and her live-in boyfriend fits her perfectly. The day she interviews for her dream job, he takes her to dinner to celebrate and ends up popping the question. Since everything in their plan is on track, Dannie says yes and they’re both as happy as can be. But when Dannie wakes up the next day, she’s in a completely different apartment – with a completely different boyfriend. One that pushes all her buttons in a great way but confuses the hell out of her.
On awakening the day after that, she is once again in her old apartment and David is by her side, life going on just as it had before, including her best friend Bella. You can’t help but love the friendship between these two women. My closest friends I’ve know for at least forty-five plus years, and I know any of them would come running if I needed them. And vice versa. That’s how Dannie and Bella are. Bella is the free spirit to Dannie’s need for control. In five years, that friendship will be tested in the worst way imaginable.
But also in five years – the question Dannie is totally prepared to answer in her interview – it’s this look into the future that has Dannie tied up in knots as that time approaches – and she meets Aaron again in the flesh. Only problem is, he’s Bella’s new boyfriend. So confusion and determination are front and center as Dannie tries to stay her course and change what she believes she knows the future is, after having lived that 24-hour period five years ago. But the trouble is you can’t change what you don’t know, and Dannie’s perception, as well as the reader’s, isn’t quite what you think it is. Life, and the future, take on a whole new meaning when tragedy strikes.
I so enjoyed the twists that come long late in this book. Nothing is as it seems, and suddenly everything Dannie experienced in the past makes more sense in a certain way, albeit it’s as sad as can be. I haven’t cried reading in a very long time, and this love story did make me cry. Be warned, this is a love story, not a romance. But it is worth every minute you spend with these characters.
Grade: A+
Summary:
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Dannie Kohan lives her life by the numbers.
She is nothing like her lifelong best friend—the wild, whimsical, believes-in-fate Bella. Her meticulous planning seems to have paid off after she nails the most important job interview of her career and accepts her boyfriend’s marriage proposal in one fell swoop, falling asleep completely content.
But when she awakens, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. Dannie spends one hour exactly five years in the future before she wakes again in her own home on the brink of midnight—but it is one hour she cannot shake. In Five Years is an unforgettable love story, but it is not the one you’re expecting.
No excerpt available.
