Review: It's Probably You by Jayne Denker

What a ripper of a read is It's Probably You, a romantic comedy by Jayne Denker. Set in a small American town we meet Gillian, a pharmacist who is happily single. She loves her job and her quirky friends and neighbours and she takes a considerable amount of pride in entering the town's annual gardening competition. So what happens when the house next door is sold and Noah, a man whose life has been turned upside down by a broken heart and who suffers from extreme allergies moves in?

Utter mayhem, that's what. Soon Noah is trying to remove the plants on his side of the property line that are causing his allergies and Gillian finds her plans for this years gardening competition thrown into chaos. Add some matchmaking neighbours into the mix, a dud dating app and a group of friends who just love Noah (to Gillian's chagrin,) and the story is a whole lot of fun.

This was a light, fresh and entertaining read. I appreciated reading a romantic comedy where the characters weren't all fresh out of school or university and where they had hobbies that were more closely suited to middle age and small town life. The older, oddball characters are a lot of fun to read about, as was a certain garden gnome. The only part of this novel I disliked was the number of dud dates that supposedly happily single Gillian had via a dating app, which stopped being entertaining after a while. That said, there were plenty of moments that had me laughing out loud, and the novel provided me with a pick me up just when I needed it.

Highly recommended.

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