Reviewed by Angela Richardson
Claire Dowling is a scriptwriter for Ireland’s top soap (I’ll have to take their word for that as I haven’t seen it). This is her fourth venture into the novel writing world, so she’s not exactly a novice in this area either. I was understandably expecting great things from her new book, a romantic comedy called No Strings Attached, after hearing Dowling’s impressive CV.
No Strings Attached is based around Judy who is getting married on Saturday and it’s a military operation: the dress, the three-tiered wedding cake, the uncle that nobody will sit beside at reception. She’s determined it’s going to be the happiest day of her life. That is until her fiancé, Barry, mysteriously disappears wearing nothing but his pyjamas. However, when his credit card shows up two days later in the south of France, Judy has to admit that he’s walked out on her.
Fanning Judy’s fury is Lenny, Barry’s best man, who believes that you shouldn’t let commitment ruin a perfectly good relationship. With the love of her life romping around France, Judy might just be in the mood for a little romance – with no strings attached, of course…
This book started out great. It was fast and funny and showed just how well Dowling can write. Unfortunately, I found the middle of the book just concentrated on everyone’s unhappiness. The plot seemed to falter and all the energy and humour of the book was leeched out to a parallel universe.
It did recover itself for the last quarter and regained its star quality, however, I’m not sure that this was enough to save the book. There were a few subplots, which compounded the gloom, having several couples struggling with their relationships and generally being miserable doesn’t really fall into the genre of romantic comedy for me.
No Strings Attached ended up being a very average book in a genre that is already oversubscribed. If only someone had been brave with the editing then this would have been a great read.
Rating: 3/5
Like this? Try The Sleeping Beauty Proposal by Sarah Strohmeyer
