Do You Come Here Often? by Alexandra Potter

This showed up in yesterday's mail (thanks Rosario). And, I started peeking at it while I was slaving over a hot stove, pickling hot cherry peppers for my hubby, if you ever want to clear your sinuses take a whiff of hot vinegar, clears them right up and makes your eyes burn and water.

But, I digress, Do You Come Here Often? is a really good book--a Chick Lit set mostly in London. It's all about finding Mr. Right (you'll know him when you find him.) Grace is our heroine, she's been engaged for 2 years to Mr. Wrong (who doesn't want to set a date). She runs into an old friend (friend, being used loosely) from home, Jimi. Grace and Jimi share a cab after she has a fight with Mr. Wrong and he leaves her alone outside the restaurant where they just celebrated her 31st birthday. She walks out on Mr. Wrong and into a platonic relationship with Jimi (who has been dumped by his fiancee less than a week before their wedding.) And the story grows so nicely from there. There are two fabulous subplots--Rhian, a single mother trying to find love; and Maggie, a 50 something retiring and moving on to the next stage of her life.

Though it's "Chick Lit" it could be considered "Chick Lit Romance" as everyone finds their HEA--love that.

There is a scene in the book when Jimi realizes he's in love with Grace--they're in NYC (part of the plot that I wont go into), but there is a reference to an ashtray and cigarette ashes on a table in a French restaurant, and got me thinking when did the anti-smoking laws in restaurants go into effect in NYC, I ignored it until I finished the book, and than I start doing the math. Jimi and Grace haven't seen each other since 1988, over and over throughout the book, it's mentioned it's 13 years since they've seen each other--this book takes place in the fall of 2001, which completely stops me short. Obviously, I don't expect people from other countries to be as obsessed about 9/11 as New Yorkers were at that time (and probably still are), but in NYC you couldn't have avoided references to it, it was constantly all around you, in the news, on the street, a constant police and military presence. Not one mention of it in the book.

It's still a great book, I know I'm nit picking.

Have a great day, and happy reading.