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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A brief introduction has the reader meeting Leni as she is about to celebrate her 35th birthday with her family. Especially as we all know dealing with the aftermath of losing a loved one can be a challenge and have such a long and devastating impact.

This is a story about a fractured family, torn apart by deceit and who, through unimaginable tragedy, learn to appreciate each other as individuals and the roles that they play in each other's lives. The book is full of likeable characters, and whilst some you may not warm to immediately, they do all redeem themselves by the end of the book. This book was very sad as ultimately it follows a family in the months after losing a daughter/sister, but it was uplifting and inspiring too. As the sisters grew they inevitably parted ways to follow different paths but always knew that they had each other's backs. Belinda finds comfort in her many conversations with a telephone clairvoyant who is able to speak to her daughter and pass messages back from beyond the grave.Alice, her sister is angry, she’s lost a friend, and more so they were at odds with each other in the run up to Leni’s death. I’ve never read anything from Lucy Diamond before, but I’m definitely going to dive into her previous work. Given the nature of this book it may be triggering for some, there is loss of a sibling and the loss of an adult child. I loved the idea of sharing memories with Leni’s friends and family - and although raw at the beginning they became a real source of comfort.

As the book moves on, through their grief they all learn things about themselves, they learn to support each other, to forgive and to try to move on. Normally, I don’t overly connect with male characters but there was just something about him that made me very fond of him. We start learning more and more about Leni from the memorial page her sister Alice set up and hearing all her stories put a big smile on my face. But overall I feel it’s a story about hope and joy, about redemption and family, about second chances, and about how important your loved ones are to you.This is a masterpiece in how broken people negotiate and ultimately survive the worst that life can throw at them. Their fond recounting of stories about Leni was wonderful and following them all through their grief was so sad yet uplifting. I really liked the flashbacks to Leno on the memorial page, the stories showed how Leni touched so many lives, selflessly at times. Tony, Leni’s dad, is a classic example of this, and I really admired and loved his character by the end.