Hens Reunited

by Lucy Diamond

[Leah]

Katie, Georgia and Alice thought they would be best friends forever. As well as being great friends they were also all at each others hen nights. Years later however, all of the girls’ marriages have fallen apart and the girls barely keep in contact.

Katie’s marriage was so bad it left her scared to marry again. What’s she going to do when her new boyfriend proposes? Georgia is a single newspaper columnist who ruined Alice’s marriage, can Alice ever forgive Georgia? Alice is now a single mother worried she’ll never get over her ex. Can she find love again?

Can the girls ever make up and go back to how their friendship was?

Hens Reunited was the first book I had the pleasure of receiving to review when the site first opened. I worried for ages that if I hated the book I would have to say so and thus forever offend Lucy and her publishers. I had nothing to worry about though, as I really enjoyed the novel.

This is actually my second Lucy Diamond book and I really enjoyed Over You, which I read a while ago, so I hoped I would enjoy Hens Reunited as much. The book starts by taking us back in time to the three girls’ hen nights and then coming back to the present and to how they are now. Each chapter also has a Take That song at the beginning which is a quirk I love from authors. Particularly with Take That songs, I love Take That.

The storyline sounds quite basic at first but is in fact incredibly enjoyable nevertheless as each girl has issues from their previous marriage as well as other issues from the past. Georgia has by far the most complex back story and it was a pleasure to read. All three girls though were hugely affected by their first marriage and that is apparent as the book progresses. It was interesting untangling their failed marriages and seeing if it was possible for them to love again. There was also the story of how the girls’ friendship disintegrated especially with what Georgia did to Alice. Yes, maybe she was only trying to help but she did it in the wrong way and I could see both sides of view about the issue.

All of the girls are fabulous characters and all are flawed and come across as incredibly real. I think I liked Georgia best which surprised me as she wasn’t the nicest of the three girls. However she was immensely enjoyable and the reasons she did some of the things she did were believable enough. Alice was incredibly nice even though she had to cope with becoming a single mother and having to move house. She didn’t let it get her down too much but had her weak moments. Katie, for me, had the weakest storyline of the three girls I felt but she was still and OK character. She acted as the go-between between Georgia and Alice, trying to create some sort of peace. Each of the girls have their own love story and for me Georgia’s was the best. It took a while but it all worked out eventually.

The book is written in the third person and each chapter swings towards a different girl, never giving us two chapters with the same one, which meant the book was incredibly fast-paced and difficult to put down. There was so much happening and yet I found it incredibly easy to keep up with everything. Incredibly the whole story happens within a week which people may think is unbelievable but it all adds to the pace of the book as far as I was concerned.

The cover isn’t fantastic, in fact I really dislike it, but you need to get past that as the book itself is fantastic. It’s an incredibly enjoyable read and I really recommend it. I look forward to Lucy’s next offering!