This book was read in Kindle format over many quick lunch breaks at work, usually during the 20 minutes it takes me to eat my lunch before I’m back at work again. As you can probably tell from the title, it’s typical chick-lit, but I can’t seem to help myself.

Samantha Brook’s boyfriend Jamie has just decided that he’s booked a one way flight to South America, leaving their relationship behind because he needs some space. His flight doesn’t leave for a good few months, and Sam’s friends convince her that she can try to win him back before he goes.

Once she gets over the initial moping and crying and leaving sobbing messages on his answerphone stage, she concocts a plan to make him jealous by joining an online dating website and parading the dates around in front of him in the hopes of him seeing what he’s missing. But things never turn out right in these books, and predictably, Sam ends up falling for one of the decoy-blokes. So when Jamie decides that he can’t go to South America after all, what will Sam do? And when Jamie drops a bombshell on her which turns her world upside down, does she even want to be with him anymore?

All the while, Sam is also dealing with an adopted sister who’s trying to get in contact with her real parents, and an alcoholic best friend who just doesn’t realise it, and doesn’t appreciate it being pointed out to her. But in the end, Sam was always going to do things her way, with a result that I definitely didn’t expect, and which was definitely not a stereotypical chick-lit ending.

I liked the book, but I didn’t feel any compulsion to keep reading it, or like I was missing out when I was reading my other ‘proper books’ and leaving my kindle neglected. I’d probably give Costello’s other books a try, as I loved the writing, I just didn’t gel with the plot.