Breakaway Books

Authored by Beth O’Leary; Published 2022; Romance

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

Beth O’Leary has ruined me for other romance writers. I don’t know what her secret magical sauce is, but the characters she creates delight me, surprise me into laughter, jerk more than a few tears from my eyes. In each of her novels that I’ve read, the protagonist (or, in this case protagonists) go through real growth from real, hard things. They heal before they find love. They find their support system before they get to their happy ending.

The No-Show is no exception. It follows Siobhan, Miranda and Jane, as they all fall in love with the same man, Carter—and are each stood up on Valentine’s Day. Exceptionally different, all three women experience their relationship with him in different ways. Although the novel included more sad moments than I normally tolerate in my beach reads, I couldn’t help but be increasingly absorbed as it went on. The three interweaving plot lines beg the reader to try to figure out the mystery of how they all intersect. By the time they conclude, I was rooting not just for all three women but, surprisingly, for Carter.

Of course, if you are bothered by a novel in which the perspective changes in every chapter, this is not the book for you. If you are particularly sensitive to sexual harassment, I also wouldn’t choose this book. The true antagonist of the novel (the harasser) felt realistic to me–not cartoonishly villainous, but just enough to make my skin crawl and have serious negative impacts on the women around him. 

Among my favorite features of this book, though, is the friends that support Siobhan, Miranda, and Jane. To these heroines, their friends are not women to be pushed aside for romantic partners. They support them, challenge them, help them to grow. It’s one of the things I love about O’Leary–quite often, her heroines are surrounded by friends who are deeply loyal and affectionate, and who identify when a relationships are distorting the heart of who they are. I read her novels and think, even without the romantic happy ending that is inevitably coming for the heroine, she’ll be okay.

Read The No-Show. Or any of Beth O’Leary’s books, but I did love the highs and lows of this one in particular. It’ll sweep you away!