⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review - Twice in a Lifetime - Helga Jensen

This review has been made possible thanks to @NetGalley and Hera Books for providing me with an Advance Reader’s Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is about missed chances between Amelia and Patrick, who she met on a trip to New York 20 years ago but lost his number. After her divorce, her friend Sian posts online about her fateful meeting and it goes viral, with someone who fits the description reaching out. Patrick and Amelia meet up in New York with her friends’ blessings while her sons are in Disneyland with their father and stepmother. When things start not adding up, will that fateful meeting lead them both to true love? Or will it have been a fluke?

I have to say I was really keen on the premise of the book. I loved the idea that these two had missed their chance 20 years ago and could reconnect again now. The writing flowed well and the pacing was really good. Unfortunately though, it felt a bit unrefined, the characters felt like tropes instead of individuals. I really didn’t like the main character, Amelia, and how she complained about every little thing. She really didn’t have her life together and she lacked some self-respect to stand up for herself. The dialogue in the text messages, while a nice touch to convey the long distance relationship, sounded very juvenile with an absurd amount of xXx kisses at the end of each message that I’m certain no American man would use. It didn’t read as realistic in those parts and kind of took me out of the story.

I’d recommend this to a lover of women’s fiction, likely your mum or aunt, as an good beach read this summer.