Sunshine On A Rainy Day By Bryony Fraser

[amazon_link id=”0007477082″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’Sunshine On A Rainy Day’ is Bryony Fraser’s debut novel.

It’s Zoe and Jack’s first wedding anniversary party. They’ve got an announcement! They’re getting divorced. Marriage isn’t for everyone – something that Zoe and Jack discovered only after they’d walked down the aisle. Bad timing, huh? So now they’re stuck together in their once harmonious marital home, neither one of them willing to move out of their lovely house. With Zoe’s three sisters always wanting a say, and Jack’s best friend trying his best to fix things between them, misunderstandings arise. Tempers flare. ‘Accidents’ happen… Zoe and Jack are going to be lucky if they’re still alive when the twelve months are up. But maybe things aren’t quite as final as they seem?

‘Sunshine On A Rainy Day’ is a honest and heartwarming story about the path of love and how far from smoothly it can run.

On the first anniversary of their marriage, Zoe and Jack announce their divorce. The story flows in the past and present tense, from the beginning of their relationship to its sudden demise.

Before they got married, Zoe and Jack were the perfect couple, they have a house and a happy life together. Both settled in their careers, Zoe is content in their relationship. She admires her parents relationship who have been together for many years, they never married and Zoe admires their loving relationship. But when Jack suddenly proposes to her out of the blue, the tables turn in the relationship and Zoe begins to feel immense pressure and no longer feels happy. Now married, she is unhappy with the written commitment and the sudden expectations that are thrown upon her now that she’s Mrs Bestwick. Feeling scared and stuck in a rut, she expresses her feelings to Jack and the once happy couple are now considering divorce, but both Jack and Zoe don’t’ have the money to move out so the pair of them have to leave in their once harmonious home and deal with new people and unwanted emotions.

When I settled down to read this story, I thought it was going to be standard boy meets girl and they fall in love but this story is far more that. It highlights the truth and imperfections of relationships and how life isn’t always a fairytale.

Zoe is a wonderful lead, outspoken with a heart of gold, she’s settled in her life and thought that Jack was content with their life together but as soon as he proposes, she becomes a different person, sad and stressed, she commits to something she’s not really invested into but doesn’t want to let Jack down and that becomes the premise of the story, Zoe doing things to keep the people around her happy. Jack is a nice character, he’s happily in love with Zoe oblivious to her stress and wants them to have a perfect life together.

The story is honest and frank and with the occasional injection of humour from Zoe’s straight talking sisters makes for lighthearted reading in parts. I loved the characters and the unexpected twist in the story and found myself sympathising with Zoe as she dealt with new unwanted feelings.

With a beautiful cover and a heartbreaking plot, ‘Sunshine On A Rainy Day’ is an entertaining story about the pressures of society and the struggles to conform, a truthful story about the upheavals of relationships and fitting in, this book is a prime example of the well used saying, ‘if not’s broken, why fix it’? A truly warm and addictive story that I enjoyed immensely.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”0007477082″ target=”_blank” ] Sunshine On A Rainy Day from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.