Guest book review: Starting Now by Debbie Macomber
9 Apr
I’m pleased to say that we didn’t scare Mum off after her first review and she’s agreed to make it a regular thing! This week she’s reviewing her first Debbie Macomber 
For years, Libby Morgan dreamed only of making partner in her competitive, high-pressure law firm. She sacrificed everything for her career – her friends, her marriage, her chance at creating a family. When her boss calls Libby into his office, she assumes it will finally be good news, but nothing can prepare her for the shocking reality: she’s been let go and must rebuild her entire life . . . starting now.
With no job prospects in sight, Libby reaches out to old friends and spends her afternoons at A Good Yarn, the local knitting store. There, she forms a close bond with Lydia, the sweet-natured shop owner, Lydia’s spirited teenaged daughter, Casey, and Casey’s best friend, Ava, a shy yet troubled girl who will shape Libby’s future in surprising and profound ways.
As A Good Yarn becomes a second home – and the women a new kind of family – Libby relishes the different person she’s become. She even finds time for romance with a charming and handsome doctor who seems to be her perfect match. But just as everything is coming together, Libby must make a choice that could forever change the life she holds so dear.
I found this book a little hard to get into at first. It’s told in the third person and seems to get off to a slow start, but as I read on I realised how clever this was. The story seems to go on and on about Elizabeth Morgan’s role as a career minded, independent woman whose sole focus on life is her job and her desperation to become Partner at Burkhart, Smith & Crandall, a Seattle based law firm only for the reader to realise this monotony is exactly how Libby’s life is! I thought this was cleverly executed and once I got into the storyline, I couldn’t put this book down.
Libby is portrayed as an average girl in her thirties, living the single life in the Seattle region of America and enjoying life in her condo. She comes across as very career minded and ‘go getting’ and I didn’t feel too much sympathy for her at the start, but as the story unfolded I began to get to know a much more feeling person, with some baggage of her own and at this point I felt empathy and admiration for her and concluded there are two sides to every story!
I think most of us can relate to Libby in one way or another – either through our own experiences or through those of our family and friends. I found myself saying, ‘she’s not the only one’ and thinking about how many of us put things on hold or convince ourselves by letting our head rule our heart?
As the story moves on, Libby is set for the big announcement from her respected boss Hershel; but it’s not what she expected and she finds herself out of a job. She calls at the local Yarn store – A Good Yarn – and through the kindness of Lydia, the owner, she becomes involved with re learning how to knit, chatting to Lydia’s adopted teenage daughter, Casey and her shy friend Ava.
As Libby builds a relationship with this new family she becomes involved as a volunteer at the local hospital – a job that in a million years she could never have pictured herself doing but opens up a whole new world to her. There she meets a handsome doctor and just as life seems to be running nice and smoothly again she is made an offer she can’t refuse! I liked the way Debbie Macomber kept me guessing with the roller coaster of events and right up to the final chapters I couldn’t decide which way things would go.
This book has a powerful message about the people in the world around us and how we may have to change our thinking, and how sometimes feeling hurts! This is the first Debbie Macomber book I have read and I would recommend it – I already have a second book by Debbie sitting on the bookcase!
4/5
Starting Now is released in paperback and ebook formats on 11th April.
With thanks to the publisher for sending us a review copy of this book.
Find out more about Debbie Macomber and her books at: http://www.debbiemacomber.com/
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