The Best Days of Our Lives: the big-hearted and uplifting new novel from the bestselling author of Anything Could Happen

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Leni and her sister Alice were best friends as well as siblings.Alice always thought they were close and she knew everything about Leni A compelling and beautifully written tale of love, grief and family. This book touched my heart * Sarah Morgan * UK popular contemporary fiction author Lucy Diamond pens a family drama saga that fans will appreciate.

What follows are chapters from each family’s members viewpoint, her sister Alice, her brother Will, her mother Belinda and her father Tony. As there were so many characters to get to know I thought things might become quite confusing but it was easy to follow each of their individual storylines and I enjoyed seeing how at some point they were bound to come together. The absence of Leni is felt keenly by her family and by the reader too. You are desperate to get to know her and to read things from her perspective but you know this can’t occur but the further the story develops you do get a sense of who she was and how integral she was to the family and how loved she was.No one writes about family like Lucy does. This is a masterpiece in how broken people negotiate and ultimately survive the worst that life can throw at them. It's an absolutely beautiful book * Milly Johnson * Alice, her sister and best friend, riddled with guilt over their silence following an earlier argument, tries to piece together the last days of Leni’s life, while baby brother Will is living fast and lose in Thailand trying to forget the part he played in their sister’s death. Meanwhile, mum Belinda falls into an unhealthy relationship with a clairvoyant as her ex, Tony, struggles with becoming a father again after a trio of failed marriages. Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for allowing me to read an advanced reader copy before publication date! 😊

This was a beautiful story that contained so much heart and lightness amongst its tragedy, such is the skill and warmth of Diamond’s writing. Its characters were written with depth and real humanity and as such their grief was raw and palpable and yet this is a novel that still manages to leave you uplifted by the end.The story is essentially about the grief her family feels when Leni dies following a bicycle accident. Lucy Diamond explores how guilt, despair, loneliness, isolation, anger and vulnerability reverberate through those left behind. Humour, love, excitement and joy I love books by Lucy Diamond and this one was just as good as the others I’ve read, with lots of characters to keep you interested.

Through the novel we follow the four people closest to Leni, her mum Belinda, father Tony and sister and brother Alice and Will. Each is dealing with their grief in very different ways throughout the story. The way Diamond weaves each characters stories throughout works so well. Never do you feel lost or confused by what is happening. This is a story about grief, love and healing and as such the journey the family goes on is very special and yet also difficult. Diamond’s analogies of the butterfly having to fight it’s way out if it’s chrysalis and the way a river will learn to flow around a pebble we’re absolutely beautiful ways to explore how we might move forward after tragedy. Somehow, this is the first of Lucy Diamond’s books I’ve read. I know of her and I’ve seen her books and often been interest in them, but for reasons unknown to me, I have never actually read one. But I was very eager to read this one. I had a problem with Leni, though, because the picture of her, painted by the characters, was totally different to this what the author showed us in the first chapter. I didn't like her too much, to be honest. The story, on the whole, was very character driven and the author did a good job with describing them, yet I still think that Leni was really the weakest link and I'm guessing it shouldn't be like this, I was supposed to like her and because I didn't, well, the whole story was already from the beginning spoiled for me. Everyone is keeping secrets and the thing about secrets is that they will all be revealed in the end. The Best Days of Our Lives is one of those books that makes you reassess how you live your own life. Deeply moving but ultimately uplifting, you won't regret reading this * Katie Fforde *It is definitely full on with the emotions, and potentially a bit too much. If they’re sad, they’re distraught, if they’re a bit lost then they’re mad. Everything is dialled up to such an extreme that it doesn’t always feel in keeping with the characters. However, her description of grief is perfect. I’ve experienced grief in a number of ways and it can present in the most bizarre of situations and the strangest of times, but she’s definitely hit the mark with that. She doesn’t sugar coat the grief but she is equally very sensitive about it. Even better is the sensation of being let into other secrets not all the characters know, but I won’t spoil the story by saying more! Reminding us how to fly Set over the course of one life-changing year, The Best Days of Our Lives is a warm, big-hearted and poignant story, full of hope, heartache and love.

The different imprints that the central incident has on all the main protagonists is thoroughly explored and differs widely but comes across as very real, giving the readers something that they can relate to, as I doubt they're will be a Lucy Diamond reader who won't have found themselves in this situation regardless of the part they played. The turmoil amid the changing of relationships was astutely unravelled and the somewhat predictable conclusion that you may expect from a 'family re-united' narrative actually ends up as something a lot more thought through, uplifting & satisfying. There are touches of mystery and romance woven into the story too so that it really is a mesmerising read. It keeps the reader guessing every bit as much as Alice as she tries to piece together Leni’s last few weeks. Belinda is dealing with her grief in a different way and her partner Ray is extremely worried about her. Hours spent talking to Leni through a psychic hotline may be bringing Belinda comfort but deep down surely she must know that this is not real at all? She may be finding short term comfort but long-term acceptance seems very far away. As her ex-husband Tony seems to have had a revelation/wake up call when it comes to his own life situation Belinda starts to realise things from the past which she desperately wanted kept hidden could be about to break through the surface. Can a lid be kept on something she and someone else have been sitting on for years? Or will a new can of worms be opened up?

You’d think that would make for a miserable or maudlin story, but not a bit of it! There’s humour, love, excitement and joy in The Best Days of Our Lives too so that, while the reader needs a tissue or two along the way, the overall sensation is of a fabulous, uplifting, and life affirming experience. Leni drives the narrative, making her relationships with the other characters shape them and bring them to vibrant life. I loved meeting them all because they are messy, flawed and human. Now with her 18th, The Best Days Of Our Lives, just out, and the last of her “babies” preparing to fly the nest for university in Edinburgh, Diamond recalls those good-old-bad-old days: “I decided to give the novel a go, but there was no safety net at all. We didn’t have a lot of money. That was in 2002. I gave myself six months.” Will Lenis brother is really struggling to come to terms with everything and has fled the country. Alother this doesn't go quite as to plan as he hopes. she tries to put together the last few weeks of Leni's life.......Only to find secrets she did not know about her.