Book Review... Any Way You Want Me - Lucy Diamond

Any Way You Want Me - Lucy Diamond
Pan, 2007
ISBN: 9780330446433













My rating

From the back cover:

"On paper, Sadie's got it all - the partner, the children, the house. But in real life, that doesn't feel quite enough. Sadie can't help harking back to the time when she was a career woman by day and a party animal by night. And what happened to feeling like a sex kitten, anyway? The only sleepless nights she's getting now are due to the baby. Maybe a little reinvention is the answer... 
Sadie can't resist creating a fictitious online identity for herself as a hot TV producer. It's only a bit of harmless fun...until truth and fantasy become dangerously tangled. It isn't long before she's wondering if the exciting alter ego she has dreamed up really is the kind of person she wants to be after all... 
Wry, funny and with a wonderful twist in the tale, "Any Way You Want Me" is an enchanting novel of infidelity, motherhood and friends reunited that heralds the debut of a lovely new voice in fiction."


When it comes to romance novels, infidelity as a theme is an absolute no-no for me. However, with chick-lit books I don't have a problem reading this, if it's handled well, mainly because these books are more life focused (it does happen!) and we're not necessarily reading for a HEA.

This book had the heroine being unfaithful, and it's not pretty. It's not because her partner doesn't treat her right, or he is also having an affair... No, it's the selfish kind of affair, but the author doesn't make any excuses for it.

Throughout the book the heroine behaves appallingly, but at the same time you can understand why and, after all, we all make mistakes.

The author does a nice job of keeping you guessing throughout and the rollercoaster journey the heroine goes on is on that is honest, gritty, emotional, and above all believable.

I do feel that the 'other man' character wasn't really used to full potential, the author makes a big effort to make us think that he really does love the heroine despite them both being in tricky situations, but then in the end he turned into a bastard, it seemed a little inconsistent.

Also, I felt this book may have been written a few years before it was published as there were a few things that felt a little dated.

But other than that, this is an interesting, emotional, and brave story.

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