Flashback Friday – #Review / #Giveaway – Seven Year Switch by Claire Cook

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Jill Murray’s life was finally going in the right direction then her ex-husband returns after being gone for 7 years wanting to see his daughter. Jill is not ready for him to be back in their life, how does she know he just won’t disappear again? When she tells her daughter he has come back she demands to see him as soon as possible and Jill watches the life she has created for herself and her daughter the past seven years implode. While all this is happening Jill meets Billy. He hires her to help him plan for a trip to Japan to pitch a business idea. Almost immediately she feels drawn to him and not in a business way. Is she ready for another man in her life? Should she try to get back with her husband for her daughter? She has no idea what to do so she signs on to a Costa Rican Girls Getaway to get away from both of them and the pressure in hopes she can figure out what direction her life should take.

This author has been recommended to me my several friends and this book was sitting on my To-Be-Read shelves for too long. Wanting a literary escape to the beach this cover called out to me so I grabbed it to read last weekend. Within a few minutes I was engaged by the characters. Jill working for a travel company from home with a phone headset attached to head as she travels her home taking care of her daughter, making supper, doing laundry, helping with homework, normal mom things. Her daughter, Anastasia, understands her mom needs to work but doesn’t appreciate the way it interrupts their time together. When her dad enters back into the picture she starts to turn to him for everything. He also makes the huge error of giving her things she wants without discussing it first with Jill. Billy adds the triangle-ish- ness to the story. The next door neighbor fits well into the picture too. All the characters are realistically written and the dialogues are excellent. The characters are the true strength to this story.

The plot starts out really well and because of the synopsis I knew a trip to Costa Rica is coming and as I got past halfway into the story I wondered how the author was going to tie up everything and thrown in a trip within the remaining pages. Well she does wrap things up but to me it was just too rushed, almost abrupt. All the depth and detail that I loved in the beginning was gone. I appreciated the message of self-worth, change and growth the author was trying to get across. The idea that every seven years you become a completely new person,as a theme was heartwarming but the decisions made at the end just happened too fast for me.

I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of this story so I still want to read more of Claire Cook’s novels. I am hoping this speedy end was just a fluke.