Happy Evie after
A time-traveller tricks her crush into loving her
Amusing, light-hearted, sweet – this fantasy rom-com is so many of the things you want from a laid-back summer read. A novel about second chances and finding yourself, what it definitely isn’t is plausible so, if you prefer your stories to be rooted in reality, then Fancy Meeting You Here probably isn’t for you.
At the age of 30, Evie Berry feels like she isn’t getting anywhere in life. She is a talented screenwriter who has let her ambitions slide. In fact, the closest Evie has come to a career in film is managing a bar in a London cinema. Meanwhile, her love life consists of booty-calls with the unsuitable Ever Ready Freddy. Both the man and the career of Evie’s dreams seem impossibly elusive.
She and her best friend
Ben make a podcast together called Pasta La Vista. After they go to interview a psychic to the stars, things take a turn for the strange. Evie wakes up one morning to find that she has been catapulted 10 years into the past. Suddenly she is 20 again, living with her parents and poised to rewrite her personal history.
What Evie wants most from this time-travel adventure is to meet Hugo Hearst, the bestselling writer she is totally obsessed with. This is her chance to get to know him before he becomes famous and mega successful. Using the information that future Evie has learnt about him, she flings herself into Hugo’s path. Soon her life is starting to resemble the one she always wanted. And inevitably nothing is exactly the way she thought it would be.
This is a fun premise for a real romp of a book that definitely delivers. While the ending is fairly predictable, that doesn’t spoil the process of getting there.
Anyone who needs distracting from harsher realities of life is going to enjoy getting lost in this delightfully light and funny nonsense.