A Smart Girl’s Guide to Second Chances (Steph Vizard, HarperCollins)

Steph Vizard’s A Smart Girl’s Guide to Second Chances is a fun, perfectly executed romcom that plays cleverly with the idea of missed connections and what-ifs. When Rebecca is offered a shot at a coveted promotion at her law firm, it upends her carefully planned life, including her wedding planning with fiancé Matt. Her life becomes more complicated when the client turns out to be her first love, Alex, reigniting a long-standing family superstition: the women in her family never marry their first fiancé. Could Alex’s reappearance be more than just coincidence? Is Matt not truly The One? Told through flashbacks to Rebecca’s Oxford days and the present unravelling of her life, Vizard beautifully balances nostalgia and drama. As in her debut, The Love Contract, Vizard’s characters are intelligent thirty-somethings whose personalities work against the stereotype of the emotionally naïve or unstable female protagonist so often seen in coming-of-age romances. Romance readers who enjoy multilayered plots that extend beyond the novel’s central relationship will enjoy the triumph of friendship in Vizard’s sophomore novel. Melburnians will also delight in the novel’s familiar setting, with coffees at South Melbourne Market and a park run at Albert Park. Readers of Emily Henry, Abby Jimenez and Mhairi McFarlane will be swept away by A Smart Girl’s Guide to Second Chances, an Australian romcom that deserves the bestseller status of its international counterparts.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Emily Westmoreland is the program director of Willy Lit Fest, the founder of Dinner Party Press and part of the prize-team behind the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize. She works as a bookseller by day. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

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