Bella Summer Takes a Chance by Michele Gorman

 
Bella - or B as she's always been known - has always had aspirations of following in her mother's footsteps and making it as a singer. Unfortunately her career has never really taken off, with B performing irregularly at business conferences and the odd club. As B approaches 40, she realises she can no longer afford to mess around - either she wants to make it as a singer or she doesn't. And if she does, she'd better act quickly instead of allowing her singing to take a back seat.
 
B has been with her boyfriend Mattias for ten years but although she loves him, she isn't in love with him and never has been. B realises they are more like friends and while this is enough for Mattias, B. needs more from a relationship. Like her music career, B's love life needs a kick start and she makes the difficult decision to end her relationship with Mattias in the hope of falling head over heels in love with someone else. The task isn't as easy as anticipated and B finds herself on disastrous date after disastrous date. Still maintaining a close friendship with Mattias, B begins to wonder whether what they'd had was enough after all.
 
Bella Summer Takes a Chance follows B as she tries to make sense of her life. She feels there should be more to a relationship than a cosy friendship, that there should be a spark and passion, something she has never had with Mattias. She begins to date again but the dates don't always turn out quite as successfully as B would have liked.
 
As well as following B's progress in both love and music, we get to know her friends. Kat is a stay at home mum of two who is happily married to James. But her marriage isn't quite as perfect as it appears and Kat is forced to make some major decisions of her own.
 
Faith, an investigative journalist, is a serial dater, finding the tiniest fault in the men she dates and using them as a reason to stop seeing them. And then there is Clare, caught in a casual fling with a man she once wanted a lot more from but now she isn't so sure she wants him at all anymore.
 
One of my favourite characters in Bella Summer Takes a Chance was Marjorie, a lady B volunteers to visit in a nursing home. Marjorie has suffered more than her fair share of tragedy during her life but she doesn't let that alter her positive outlook on life.
 
Bella Summer Takes a Chance is a light, often humorous, tale of finding love and reaching for your dreams.


 
Thank you to Michele Gorman for providing me with a copy to review. I will be chatting to Michele on Tuesday.