While Lola Keeley is a great writer and this is indeed well written, I just struggled to enjoy it. For one thing, while I could see why Alice liked Sara, the reverse was not discernible. Whenever Sara said things she liked about Alice, they were always informed attributes, not things I had noticed in the story, other than Sara thinking Alice was hot for being able to fly a plane, or looked good in uniform. Nothing deeper than that.

Second, whenever the characters clashed over politics, it was never resolved. Alice would send cops to Sara’s house to fend off the paparazzi, Sara would, quite rightly, point out that given she and her daughter are women of colour, cops don’t make them feel safe (quite the opposite), Alice would be all like “huh? why??” and then the paps would just magically disappear without the need for a police presence and nothing more is discussed about that. Alice is all like “I love the troops! I fought in Afghanistan! Remembrance services are important to me!” and Sara is like “my daughter and I are brown! Fuck the murdering, colonising troops and the British empire! Remembrance services honour murderers!” and then they just agree to disagree. Even at the end, Alice is pissy with Sara for being against the monarchy and not giving a shit about state events (despite now enthusiastically participating in them for Alice’s sake), and they fight about it, and nothing is resolved.

Third, it’s entirely unclear why Sara ends up going along with all this. Despite being an anti-monarchist, anti-cop, anti-military, anti colonialist socialist, and despite the fact that Alice had actually offered to sever ties with the monarchy, Sara is still fine going to state events, being surrounded by bodyguards and spooks and ex-military personnel, etc, just to be with Alice? Alice gives up nothing, while Sara has to give up her job, and move away from her best friend, who is also her daughter’s aunt? And there is absolutely no emotional journey justifying any of this?

And in the end, Sara attends a state event welcoming the Turkish head of state, and Turkish military dignitaries. We know Sara doesn’t like the British PM, but we don’t get to hear her thoughts on these men who are carrying out a genocide against the Kurds.

I’d rather watch something entirely fantastical like The Christmas Prince than read something that brings real politics into the mix but cannot resolve its own contradictions.

Plus, again, what does Sara see in the absolute McNothing that is Alice. 

I don’t think they should have gotten back together

The Chalfens were too annoying, and also the book did not live up to my memories of the television adaptation 

Incredible book. Even if some parts felt a little too relatable.

While I’ve found a couple of Jae’s books a bit flat and formulaic, the books of her’s I’ve read recently have all been great, and this is possibly the best one yet. It never feels like events in the book are contrived just to provide opportunities for romance. It is a brilliant story in its own right, and the romance feels all the more real and emotional for being woven so deftly into the story. Fittingly, given that the story originated first as a fictional film script and then a fictional film in Jae’s Hollywood series of romances, this book feels like an epic disaster film, on par with Titanic, and far superior to anything by Roland Emerich. Out of all Jae’s books so far, this is the one I most want a sequel to!