The Wish List By Jane Costello

[amazon_link id=”0857205560″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’The Wish List’is the latest book by Jane Costello.

There are six months left of Emma Reiss’s twenties and she has some unfinished business. Her career is all wrong, her love life is a mess and that rambling country house she pictured herself in simply never materialised. Moreover, she’s never seen the Northern Lights, mastered the guitar, jumped out of a plane or snogged anyone famous – just some of the aspiration declared on a list she compiled fifteen years ago. So, as Emma hurtles towards her thirtieth birthday, she sets about addressing these issues. But, as she discovers with hilarious consequences, some of them are trickier to achieve than she’d thought.

Again I have found another new author for me, but Jane Costello is an author who has been around for a while, with five novels already under her belt she is well established within the industry.

‘The Wish List’ is a unique story that I enjoyed immensely but I also found a bit sad, as I approached my own thirtieth birthday with both trepidation and excitement, as I reflected upon my first 30 years of life. Emma plays the protagonist in the story, a young, creative and vibrant woman who approaches her thirtieth birthday with apprehension when upon discovering a list that she and her best friends made when they were 15, of things that they hope to achieve by the time they reach 30. The list is an adventurous and fun one, that I imagine all teenage girls would like to achieve at some point in their lives, snog a celebrity, a parachute jump and marry the one they love. But, as Emma reflects back on the list, she realises just how little she has done with her life and decides to finally fulfil as much of the list as she can, before her thirtieth birthday.

Seen solely through the eyes of Emma, ‘The Wish List’ is a bright story that makes for the perfect light reading companion, with a lead character that I could easily relate to, it almost felt like Emma was playing myself at times! I loved her energy and willingness to trying new things. The opening scene to the book was particularly entertaining, as Emma goes about the first item of the list as she wakes up after her first one night stand and wonders did she or didn’t she sleep with the wonderfully gorgeous Matt.

With the help of her close group of best friends, Emma seeks out to finish the list with hilarious and heartwarming results. With regular scenes of snort out loud laughter and scenes of hurt and betrayal, that gives the story an edge of deception as one of Emma’s best friends falls for a married man, the story also gives an insight into just how hard it can be to be the other woman.

Wittily written, with short snappy chapters that you can easily absorb in a day and the inclusion of a group of wonderful characters, hilarious misfortunes and charming and beautiful men. ‘The Wish List’ is the perfect introduction to Jane Costello.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”0857205560″ target=”_blank” ] The Wish List on Amazon [/amazon_link]and is available to buy from good bookshops.