Review ~ City of Friends by Joanna Trollope

Mantle
An imprint of Pan Macmillan
2017
327 pages

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

What's it all about..

The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or at least, the only life she'd ever known. For who was she if not a City high-flyer, Senior Partner at one of the top private equity firms in London? As Stacey starts to reconcile her old life with the new - one without professional achievements or meetings, but instead, long days at home with her dog and ailing mother, waiting for her successful husband to come home - she at least has The Girls to fall back on. Beth, Melissa and Gaby. The girls, now women, had been best friends from the early days of university right through their working lives, and for all the happiness and heartbreaks in between. But these career women all have personal problems of their own, and when Stacey's redundancy forces a betrayal to emerge that was supposed to remain secret, their long cherished friendships will be pushed to their limits...

What did I think about it..

I've been a fan of this author's writing for years and I always enjoy the way that Joanna Trollope presents her stories. Whilst City of Friends is something of a slow burner of a book it nevertheless explores, in detail, the minutiae of the lives of her female characters. The story explores the reasons why four talented women act in the way that they do, covering the anxieties and difficulties of what it is like to be a forty something career woman with all the pressures of home, family and work. Stacey, Beth, Melissa and Gaby have been friends for a long time, and as so often happens life and family can get in the way of friendship. Occasionally the trust between close friends can break down and the reasons for this are nicely explored in City of Friends.

Whilst I don't think this is the strongest book by this author, I did engage with the story and felt some sympathy for the situations that the women find themselves in, however, they're not always a very likeable bunch of women and there were times when I wanted them to act in a different way. 

Overall, I enjoyed seeing how their individual stories unfolded in the wider context, and by the end of City of Friends,  I cared enough about them all to hope that it would work out for them.

More about the author can be found on her website 

Find the book on Amazon UK

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