"Life or Something Like It" by Annie Lyons

Cat runs a very successful PR company with her best friend, and secret crush, Jesse.  She is renowned in the celebrity world for the work she does and how good she is at it.  She loves nothing better than seeing her clients in the spotlight, even if it comes through sacrificing her personal life.

But as everyone knows, when a celebrity falls from grace, they fall quickly.  And when one of Cat’s footballer clients ends up looking bad in the press, her career is put on hold.  Without her job, Cat doesn’t know what to do.  So when her brother calls her in urgent need of someone to watch his kids for two weeks, she agrees to help him out.

“Auntie” isn’t exactly a role Cat has been keen on taking on in the past.  She’s never wanted kids and doesn’t know a thing about looking after them.  And her niece and nephew, Ellie and Charlie, know it.  But Cat isn’t completely alone at this.  She has hunky Finn, Uncle to Ellie’s friend, to help her along, even if he does infuriate her at every step.  And when Cat and Finn take their charges on a two week beach holiday, she may end up realizing that this life may not be so bad after all.  Too bad it’s just temporary….right?

Life or Something Like It, by Annie Lyons, is a lovely and fun novel about what we think we want out of life and finding out what we really want.  

I absolutely adored this novel.  I’m a sucker for a novel where the main character gives up one life to go live another.  And while this is a plot we have seen time and time again, it is still possible to make it fresh.  And Annie Lyons does just that in this book.

I thought that all of the characters in this book were great. Cat is very loveable in both her old and new life.  The children are great and Lyons captures very well the struggles of both children today as well as their caregivers.  And Finn? Well, it took me a little while to warm up to him.  I guess I could really see him through Cat’s eyes.

This book is a great summer read, especially because of the trip to the beach part way through.  How much do I want to hit an English beach now?  The book flows wonderfully and once again, because this is a story line we may have seen before, that shows how wonderfully written this book is.  

I really don’t like to give much away about books when I review them but I must say, I absolutely loved the way this book ended.  At first I thought the ending was going to be rushed and obvious, but it it gave me a great surprise to see what happened and I know that is what Lyons was going for.

I can’t help but gush about this book.  This is one of the best novels I have read so far this summer.  I breezed through it, not because it was simple, but because I was enjoying it so much.  I definitely did not want to put it down and I don’t think you will want to either.

I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher through NetGalley.  The opinions expressed above are my own.