A light bit of romantic fluff. Good comfort read when you can’t muster much energy to read in bed at night. ( )

As I'm not a real fan of the romance genre, I was a little tentative to start this book. I did listen to this book on audible, and that may have helped. The book follows three very different women who are all involved with the same man. Siobhan is a quick thinking lifestyle coach and her back story, as it is revealed, we learn leaves her very vulnerable and afraid to let herself fall for someone. Miranda is a tree surgeon, and her job takes her up in the air to the tops of trees. Miranda also has a backstory, and handles her disappointments and search for a soul mate by her job. Jane is a severely damaged young woman who is under-employed at a charity shop and she is trying to put her life back together again after a traumatic breakup with undertones of coercion and assault. Each of the women really don't don't the man that they are involved with, but a single traumatic incident brings everything to light. Each woman eventually finds their soul-mate and things all fall into place at last. I did enjoy this story. ( )

more like 2.5 ( )

I finished this a while ago and forgot I hadn't reviewed it yet! This is another fun, witty, cleverly-written story by Beth O'Leary. She makes me want to be her friend and hang out in her insightful, warm-fuzzy world of characters.
It took me a bit to get into the story, but knew it would be worth it, and it was. We immediately are distrustful of Carter (Joseph) and why he is cheating on these three already (emotionally) wounded women. But of course, there is so much more to the story than what we read at first. Stick with the story and know it touches on some delicate subjects, but also know that it is much more than a love story, and one that is so worth it! ( )

Actual rating: 3.5/5

I went into this book expecting another rom-com-style story about a two-timing guy, a serial cheater of sorts and had fully built in my head a John Tucker Must Die kind of plot flowing from that (I know, weird). But! Knowing Beth O'Leary after having thoroughly enjoyed The Flatshare, I should have guessed it just could not be that simple.

It's tough to review this book without spoilers, so I'll already apologise if everything I say sounds super-vague but I really don't want to risk giving anything away since the way the story developed was definitely a key factor in my enjoyment of this. This is one of those stories where it's best to go in blind, but just be mindful that there is some heavy content and it's not a super fluffy and light-hearted read. For me, it was definitely heart-warming and heart-breaking at the same time, which really shows the author's talent!

The three main characters are amazing women, each in her own way and with her own flaws. I loved how their individual voices came through in the multiple POVs and they really sounded like different people. To varying degrees, I grew to care about all of them and I loved following along for a part of their journey.

Despite this, at times I felt as though they weren't 100% fleshed out as characters: maybe it's because of the need to juggle three main characters and a full cast of secondary characters, but there were points in the novel where the three women definitely felt like characters instead of real people, boxed in their key distinguishing traits and not moving away from them. This didn't happen all the time, but it was often enough that it took something away from me in the enjoyment of this.

Their relationships with Joseph were also annoying at times. Yes, he's charming but he also doesn't always behave fairly towards them and all three women certainly put up with a lot of stuff without questions. Much is explained by the end, going a lot way towards his redemption in my eyes, but it was not enough to justify some of his behaviour.

I loved the experience of reading this book, as the writing fully drew me in. The beginning and end had me rushing through, but I felt some steam was lost towards the middle, which bored me slightly. Still, powering through it was certainly worth it to get to the ending! Some of the side plots were also brilliant and definitely added to my enjoyment.

The No-Show is a very clever book that is likely to appeal to anyone who likes a good romance with depth in plot and themes tackled. There is plenty going on just underneath the surface, and it was a delight to get to it.

CW:This book contains mentions of death, pregnancy/miscarriage, stalking.


I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. ( )