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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Connections were being made and hearts were being opened and everyone was learning to be real and honest otherwise what was the point. I love books by Lucy Diamond and this one was just as good as the others I’ve read, with lots of characters to keep you interested. While I did cry my eyes out reading this story, I would definitely describe The Best Days of Our Lives as a fun and happy book.

Belinda and Tony had split up many years ago and had different partners, Tony having had more than one significant other over the years, but now currently settled with a younger partner who is pregnant, so he's about to become a dad again. Tony is sweet and a bit gormless and slowly bit by bit as he starts to wake up and understand that he needs to change he comes to a realisation that the family that he left behind when his marriage broke down, that maybe it’s not too late to make amends with them. It is also about them coming to terms with Leni’s death and getting over the grief and living life to the fullest as Leni would have wanted her family to be. Set over the course of one life-changing year, The Best Days of Our Lives is a warm, big-hearted and poignant story, full of hope, heartache and love. I struggled to get through the first half or so but found once I reached perhaps around the 55% mark I finally started to really engage with each individual character.

There are also some twists and turns throughout the story, which add a little bit of intrigue into Leni’s story. The story revolves around Leni, although we don’t actually get to meet Leni for long in person as shortly after the book begins, Leni is knocked off her bike and sadly dies. The patchwork family was interesting and I enjoyed following on their journey to accepting not only the fact that one of them is dead, but accepting themselves, just like they are. Will, the youngest McKenzie, he’s in denial, having hopped onto a plane to Thailand days after the funeral.

As Alice says ’The world spun off it’s axis and everything went dark’ and this how every family member feels. Lina McKenzie was the life of the party and also the glue that held her somewhat dysfunctional family together. Indeed, neither of them had once given a thought to what they would do without the other, and particularly if that special sibling bond were snatched away in the midst of a time of simmering vex and underlying jealousy.The book centres around how each family member copes with grief after loosing Leni to a tragic accident.

As you see from the blurb Leni is already absent from the book as she died when she was knocked off her bike in a road traffic accident. Lucy is the Sunday Times bestselling author of eighteen novels including The Beach C afé and Anything Could Happen . Yes, the first half for me dragged but as the family stumbled towards acceptance and in doing so grew and matured and at the same time I felt there was a turning point and the my earlier misgivings began to disappear. 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.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. I now live in Bath with my husband and three young children and divide my time between writing and looking after them. The best day of our lives' is a beautiful story about love (in so many ways), grief, strength and overcoming your pain to build something amazing out of it. Despite this, it is an uplifting read and there are many important life lessons to be learnt from it. The Best Days of Our Lives has a sad and difficult event that forms the core of the book from which all the other events and situations involving the characters evolve from.