The Best Thing That Never Happened To Me By Laura Tait And Jimmy Rice

‘The Best Thing That Never Happened To Me’ is the first book by writing team, Laura Tait and Jimmy Rice.

Everyone remembers their first love. Holly certainly remembers Alex. But she decided ten years ago that love wasn’t about mix tapes and seizing the moment – though she’s not exactly sure it’s about secret dates with your boss, either. But what if the feelings never really went away?

Alex wants to make every moment of his new job count. It’s a fresh start in a big city, and he’s almost certain that moving to London has nothing to do with Holly. Almost. How do you know if it was meant to be. or never meant to happen at all?

For this being, Laura and Jimmy’s debut, I have to say that it certainly is a triumph of one. A unique couple, who have never been a couple write successfully and genuinely about falling in love with your best friend and whether or not you should cross the boundary of friendship.

Seen from the perspectives of both characters, I thought this story made for insightful and entertaining reading that I laughed out loud at on many occasions. The lead characters are particularly interesting, Holly is stuck in a job with a boss who she is having an illicit affair, that she hopes one day will become a real relationship and not one that she has to hide. Whereas as Alex has just moved to the big city of London, determined to make a change in his new secondary school, packed with troubled teens and attitudes. The story moves back and forth between the characters through past and present times, as their relationship progresses and they both experience knew unwanted and surprising feelings and how they adapt to these feelings when they meet again in later life As well as Holly and Alex being wonderful leads, I enjoyed the inclusion of Kev, Alex’s best friend who adds a bit of crude humour with his laddish behaviour and dialogue, his nuggets of wisdom regarding made for particularly fun reading and I really enjoyed the chapters of the book that he featured in.

With a beautifully illustrated cover that will indeed out on the shelves. This book is a poignant and fun story from the very beginning, ‘The Best Thing That Never Happened To Me’ is a compelling and witty story that does does make for warm lighthearted reading and brings back fond memores of the 90’s. And with this being the first book by Laura Tait and Jimmy Rice, it is wonderful to see such fresh new voices in the genre.

You can pre-order [amazon_link id=”0552170712″ target=”_blank” ]The Best Thing That Never Happened To Me from Amazon [/amazon_link] and will be available to buy from good bookshops from 3rd July 2014.