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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Alice, her sister is angry, she’s lost a friend, and more so they were at odds with each other in the run up to Leni’s death. He made mistakes in the past, but as he begins to realise he didn’t quite live up to being a particularly good dad, he is determined to make amends now that he’s lost one daughter.

As the book moves on, through their grief they all learn things about themselves, they learn to support each other, to forgive and to try to move on. As Alice says ’The world spun off it’s axis and everything went dark’ and this how every family member feels.

This is a story about grief, love and healing and as such the journey the family goes on is very special and yet also difficult. Shortly after her 35th birthday, Lina is out riding at night when she's knocked off her bike and instantly killed by a passing car. But thankfully this story wasn’t all misery, anguish and sadness as it could have easily descended into this vein.

Given the subject matter of The Best Days of Our Lives, the new book by Lucy Diamond, you’d be forgiven for thinking this story would be all doom and gloom and extremely difficult to read.

Their fond recounting of stories about Leni was wonderful and following them all through their grief was so sad yet uplifting. Lucy is the Sunday Times bestselling author of eighteen novels including The Beach Cafe and Anything Could Happen.

Sometimes the act of getting through a trauma can give you strength you didn’t have before-strength to fly’. Some characters are loveable from the start, some grow on you as you go through the story, and absolutely nobody is perfect. Everyone is keeping secrets and the thing about secrets is that they will all be revealed in the end. The big-hearted, hopeful new novel from the bestselling author of The Beach Cafe and Anything Could Happen - perfect for summer reads. 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.

We start learning more and more about Leni from the memorial page her sister Alice set up and hearing all her stories put a big smile on my face. This is extremely difficult as Leni was taken from them so prematurely when she had an accident whilst on her bike. What we see are human beings going through messy, conflicting, and complex emotions due to losing someone they loved so dearly.

I loved the idea of sharing memories with Leni’s friends and family - and although raw at the beginning they became a real source of comfort. 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. I really liked the flashbacks to Leno on the memorial page, the stories showed how Leni touched so many lives, selflessly at times.I could see instantly that Alice was filled with both rage and regret at what had happened and also guilt the reason for which becomes apparent fairly early on. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a weepy and will have you reaching for the tissues throughout, but it was so heart-warming that I couldn’t help but be captivated by it right from the very beginning.