Insignificant others A novel

Review by Booklist Review

After a brutal breakup, corporate executive Lena retreats to the safety of Bainbridge Island to visit her beloved Aunt Rosie. Thankfully, she still has her job and her best friend to give her comfort. But everything changes when she wakes up one morning in Paris, next to a handsome Frenchman who claims to be her husband. In fact, Lena starts waking up every morning in the middle of a different time line where she had married a man from her past, each with wildly different outcomes. One day, she wakes up above the pub she owns with an Irishman who she'd met while backpacking through Europe in her twenties; another day she sees what a terrible state her life would be in had she stuck by her high-school sweetheart; and then the next morning, she's scrambling to cook fresh-caught seafood while running a charter yacht with another man from her past. This sweet story with an intriguing framing device explores what really matters in life, and how the choices we make and the people we choose affect who we become.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

A clever conceit enables the heroine of this uneven rom-com from bestseller Jio (With Love from London) to explore the roads less traveled. Lena Westbrook has always been determined not to follow in her unlucky in love mother's footsteps, but her perfectly planned life implodes when her boyfriend fails to propose on her expected timeline. She heads to her aunt's house on Washington's Bainbridge Island to recalibrate--only to wake up in Paris and find herself married to a man she flirted with once at a wedding. It's stop one on an 11-day Quantum Leap--like journey that offers her glimpses of what her life would have looked like if she'd chosen a happily ever after with any of the potential lovers she's overlooked. Soon, she's in Kinsale, Ireland, with a man she met while backpacking, and then on a yacht off the coast of Santorini with another man from her extensive travels. It's a fun and whimsical concept, but even in the context of magical realism, it strains credulity that almost every man Lena's ever glanced at would have been willing to marry her. Lena also doesn't really learn much from her alternate reality adventures; she evaluates each man to determine who might be the one that got away, but never turns that scrutiny inwards. This falls short of its ambitions. (Apr.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

In one night, Lena Westbrook's carefully constructed life begins to fall apart. With a lucrative job in San Francisco secured, her next major life step is to marry her successful boyfriend. When the anticipated marriage proposal ends in disaster, a devastated Lena flies back to her Aunt Rosie's house on Seattle's Bainbridge Island to recover. Near the safety of her childhood home, she falls asleep in a little cottage on the property, only to wake up the next day in a luxurious apartment in Paris with a very handsome husband beside her. After overcoming the shock, Lena goes through her day trying to figure out what happened, only to fall asleep and wake up in another place and another relationship. As each day passes, Lena experiences various courses her life could have taken and must summon the confidence to break the relationship time loop and find the love of her life. VERDICT Bestselling Jio (With Love from London) has created an entertaining and engaging tale of life choices and destiny in alternate realities, as in Matt Haig's The Midnight Library.--Joy Gunn

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