Last year I was asked to read book called Life After Yes by Aidan Donnelley Rowley. Since it wasn't published yet, I was asked to wait to review it until a much closer publication date (May 18th). Then I heard TLC Book Tours was promoting this book and I asked to be part of the tour since I wanted to review it as well.
The story revolves around Quinn (actually Prudence Quinn O'Malley) who is a young attorney living in New York City. She is living the life and is dating an attractive man who whisks her away to Paris. He then proposes, she accepts...and then she starts to doubt.
Now let me say right here that this is not normally my type of book. In fact, after the first page or two I was asking my self "Why did I decide to read this? It's so cliche!". But then something odd happened. Quinn thought the same thing. And that got me interested in the story. I wondered what was going to happen to a woman who supposedly has everything she should wish for but who suddenly doubts it all.
While I didn't always like Quinn and often wondered why in the world she was doing the things she was doing, I was sympathetic. I mean, I was never one to imagine my wedding day or dream about bridal dresses so I kind of understood her fight or flight reaction. Another interesting thing is that the story takes places just after 9/11 and Quinn's father was one of the casualties that day. I had lost my father almost ten years before I was married, but I think it's always one of those things a girl will think about: the fact that her father isn't there to walk her down the aisle.
So this wasn't a typical romance/chick-lit type of book. It had it's dark moments but there was a surprising amount of fun moments as well such as the witty best friend (cliche as well but hey...).
**Side note: Harper Collins asked me and Nicole from Linus's Blanket to come and chat with Aidan Donnelley Rowley and other Harper employees who had read the book. Aidan was a wonderful host and answered all our questions and chatted away with us. She was born in Manhattan, is a lawyer, mom and also has a great blog called Ivy League Insecurities if you want to check her out more.
**Another side note:
I have an extra copy to give away to one lucky winner. The giveaway is open internationally through May 25th and all you have to do is:
1) Leave a comment with your email or blog for contact purposes
2) Tell me what about this story interests you.
For more reviews check out the TLC Book Tour:
Tuesday, May 18th: Life and Times of a “New” New Yorker
Thursday, May 20th: Confessions of a Bookaholic
Monday, May 24th: Books Like Breathing
Wednesday, May 26th: Luxury Reading
Thursday, May 27th: Rundpinne
Tuesday, June 1st: Crazy for Books
Wednesday, June 2nd: Cindy’s Love of Books
Thursday, June 3rd: Write Meg
Tuesday, June 8th: Heart 2 Heart
Wednesday, June 9th: Thoughts From an Evil Overload
Thursday, June 10th: Book Club Classics!
