These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: They’ve all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up – Valentine’s Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they’ve all been stood up by the same man. I loved every female character in this book, but I must admit my heart really did fall for Jane! Darcey Throughout the book you get to know the three leading ladies Siobhan, Miranda and Jane, I really enjoy a book from the different characters’ perspectives, I find it incredibly interesting as it really speeds up the pace of the book for me. I loved every female character in this book, but I must admit my heart really did fall for Jane, the sweetest character with a lot of self-doubt and worry, I was really rooting for Janey and so the ending (if you’ve read the book) made my heart swell! The author’s last book, The Road Trip, also featured a plot where the reader doesn’t learn everything that transpired until late in the book. I’m not totally opposed to that sort of plot, but The No-Show takes it to extremes, with instances of intentional misdirection. Which, again, is the sort of thing I expect more from a mystery or thriller.

Is there more to him than meets the eye? Where was he on Valentine’s Day? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken?So, pluses: O’Leary is a funny, engaging writer, and the story was compelling. The three main female characters were likable as were several secondary characters (especially Miranda’s sisters and the friends that Jane does end up making/realizing she had all along in the course of the book). Minuses: the structure of the story and a plot development late in the book. Janine: I think the only reason the manipulation didn’t bother me as much is because I was expecting *something.* It was clear that things were not as they seemed.

Content warnings: self-harm, alcoholism, obsession, stalking, sexual harassment, miscarriage, dementia. I finished this last night and have mixed feelings about this book. For the record I DNF The Flatshare and thoroughly enjoyed The Switch. I haven’t read her other book. I felt that this book really suffered from poor editing. The characters all felt really flat. Siobhan in particular was just glossed over. Her past relationship was only mentioned twice despite it being a major plot device. The other two female characters were interesting but again, never really fleshed out. Joseph was just a conduit to explore these women’s flaws and growth. It didn’t quite work. Joseph himself was frankly kind of boring. Like the women, I never felt that I knew him or his motivations. O’Leary writes about women who are healing from abuse, both work and personal, exceptionally well. Each of the women resonated with me in how they exhibited a different common dynamic of the past couple of years—Siobhan’s overwork causes her to burnout, Jane is rebuilding her sense of self after a toxic work situation, and Miranda is learning to trust her strength and beauty, because she isn’t sure if she’s posh enough for Joseph. In each case, the women’s relationships with Joseph help them grow and heal, even if they don’t end up with him at the end. It might have been the mystery of how Joseph was going to get caught that kept me reading, but it was spending time with Siobhan, Miranda and Jane’s journey that made me enjoy the book along the way. Meticulously plotted, fresh and surprising but thrumming with that signature Beth O’Leary warmth we all adore, The No-Show is a dream of a novel from start to finish, even if it is a total enigma until the very end.

FOLLOW

At first, I didn’t want to like Joseph because he felt like a combination of the leads from Sister Wives and Dexter, a charmingly manipulative man with his own moral code. As readers, we slowly unpeel the ways his life intersects with the three very different women. And the more I learned about Joseph, the more he wormed his way into my heart just like the heroines. Joseph works in IT in London, but spends most of his time in his hometown of Winchester. He’s a lovable nerd, who just happens to be drop-dead gorgeous, and takes care of his mom with dementia even though she can’t help calling his girlfriend by the wrong name. So, when I first read the blurb, sometime before starting the book, I made a few assumptions. Rereading the blurb, it’s clear that to some degree I didn’t read closely enough, because one of the assumptions was that this was going to be “three women get together and get revenge on the cad who broke all of their hearts”, which is actually not indicated. As the blurb states, each relationship continues for some time after the standing-up in the beginning of the book, and in fact for the majority of the book none of the three even knows about the other two.