Off The Record by Sue Welfare

When Liz and Nick arrange to meet someone in Norwich, it’s a crying shame it isn’t each other.
Liz is a recently divorced thirty-something, trying to rebuild her career as a journalist. Nick is single, deeply gorgeous and trying hard to improve his job prospects. They meet, are attracted and…if only life were that simple.
For Liz and Nick, things are about to get a lot more complicated, as one small economy with the truth threatens to wreck everything.
A heady brew of incompetent exes, good friends, and alcoholic artists manage to disrupt the course of true love. Will anyone of them realise what’s going on and see the answer through the chaos? Will they finally live happily ever after?

A Classic Romantic Comedy from Sue Welfare – Sue sent the book to me to read and give an honest review of same, and so here it is:

When Liz and Nick arrange to meet someone in Norwich, they are each expecting entirely different people to turn up.

Liz has just been offered the chance to get her journo career back on track after leaving it for her marriage (now failed) and her sons. She is out to impress and feeling very nervous. Nick on the other hand is single, carefree, good looking and wanting to branch out in his career back to the real thing. They introduce themselves at the hotel where they are to meet their respective interviewees, amidst confusion of assuming they are with the intended people.  
Nick realises that Liz is not the woman he is waiting for, but he’s so smitten he tells one white lie which leads on to many more and suddenly it is too late to back track and set things straight. Which leaves Liz swooning after the wrong guy….well the right guy but the wrong name!

I was enthralled with the story at the start, but it lost my interest a little when the truth took so long to be revealed, and with the side story of the alcoholic artist Jack and his raging nutter of a wife. The comedy of the story was excellently written and the situations Liz found herself in daily while dealing with non English speaking students, her boisterous sons, her bewildered parents, her very good girlfriend (we all need one), and the horrid, domineering, whinging ex husband all added up to some really good dialogue and descriptions. 

But all good stories have to end, and will it be a happy ending for Liz and Nick or will it have to be forgotten as they both move on in their separate directions?

It is well worth the read, and I was glad I carried on through the less interesting bits about Jack, to the end.

I give this book a mark of 4 stars out of 5, mainly for the excellent belly laughs I got from reading it.