On the whole I like Lucy Diamond’s novels. They’re unashamedly light women’s fiction, almost ‘chick-lit’, although her characters tend to be rather older than that would imply. But they’re good stories, well written, and with satisfactory endings.
I was given ‘On a Beautiful Day’ last Christmas. It has a gorgeous cover, but it sat on my to-be-read shelf for nearly eight months. However I’ve just read it over the past few days.
It’s the story of four women: India, Eve, Jo and Laura. They’re close friends, and they meet at a restaurant a day or two after each of their birthdays, to celebrate together. We meet them on a beautiful day in May, a day or two after India’s birthday. She is looking forward to her lunch out; her husband Dan is looking after their three children at home.
Jo and Laura are sisters, but quite different in personality. Jo is a nurse who was recently divorced; however she has just met rather a nice man. Unfortunately, he has a very belligerent teenage daughter. Laura is married to Matt, and would love to have children, but so far all their attempts have ended in loss.
Eve arrives bang on time; it’s clear that she’s highly organised, and likes to stay in control of everything. She’s always smartly dressed, and works as an accountant. She has two daughters although the older one, at thirteen, seems to be drifting away from her. And Eve has just discovered something that is worrying her…. But she hates to admit to any weakness, or to ask for help.
There’s a fair bit of description in the first chapter, but I could sense the tension; the scene is set for something awful to happen. And it does - an out-of-control car veers across the street. It misses the four women having lunch together, but others are less fortunate.
It was a good start to the novel, which charts the next few months in each of their lives, all of them changed in some way by this tragic accident. Jo, who rushes in to give professional help, becomes quite emotionally attached to a woman whose legs have been crushed. Laura realises that time is running out for her to have a baby, and starts thinking about fertility clinics. Jo realises she needs to be less cautious, as life is passing her by… and Eve feels unable to talk to anybody.
As for India, the accident sparks some memories of twenty years earlier, which are hinted at so obviously in several places that I thought I knew what her secret was. However I was wrong in the details, and when her story finally comes out, it’s quite poignant.
The novel switches between characters as they go through their various lives, interacting with their families, their work places and each other. There are some which I thought very well done; Jo’s stresses with teenage Maisie, for instance, are all too realistic. Eve’s struggles with her daughters, and her reluctance to share her fears with anyone also seem very believable.
On the other hand, I couldn’t quite believe in Jo and Laura’s awful mother, and I struggled too to understand what happened with Laura’s marriage; things there seem to happen much too fast. And I never entirely got inside the skins of anybody. There’s a lot of explanation, and plenty of action, and it’s a well-told story.
But none of the characters feel warm or three dimensional. That doesn’t matter at all in a plot-driven story, such as crime fiction, but this is more character-driven. Each of the four women grows up a little, and changes some of her viewpoints, and brings issues out into the open. I didn’t have too much difficulty remember who was whom, as far as their family circumstances went. But I didn’t feel as if I knew any of them. Eve is perhaps the most realistic to me, but that may be because I know of people with many of her traits, and was superimposing them in my mind.
Still, I kept turning the pages, wanting to know what would happen, what exactly India’s secret was, and what the outcome would be of Eve’s worries. It’s a good story, and it all comes together at the end, in early September, when the four women meet again to celebrate Jo’s birthday. Many issues are resolved, and they all have something to look forward to in the future. There’s a strange kind of ending, predicting all kinds of things about the futures of the four women and their families, which is a tad intrusive but ties up lots of ends quite nicely, so I didn’t mind.
Overall I thought it pleasant light reading, which would be ideal for a holiday or a wet weekend. Recommended in a low-key way if you like this kind of women’s fiction.
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