Laura La Quesne has something to say about love. Her parents have the best meet-cute story, and even though her father died when she was only 3, her mother spent her life telling Laura all about him and keeping his spirit alive through objects. So Laura knows that he loved Phil Collins songs and To Kill a Mockingbird, and she wears his oversized watch every day.
A journalist for a lifestyle website, it’s Laura’s job to interview couples on their meet-cute stories. And she keeps hoping for her own, but so far her relationships have been lackluster, no big moment of chemistry, no “kablammo,” as she calls it. So when her boss insists on an exciting new story for the site, Laura has nothing of her own to offer. So she does the only thing she can think of—she proposes doing a story on how her parents met.
Her parents met on the island of Jersey, in the Channel Islands off the coast of Britain. Her mother found a half of a coin and wanted to find who it had belonged to. When a woman on Jersey said it was hers, that her husband had split the coin in half when he went off to the war, taking half with him and leaving the other half with her, Laura’s mom knew she had to deliver it herself. She went to Jersey to meet the woman and return the second half of the coin. And she ended up falling in love with her son.
Laura grew up on the stories of how they met on the island and how they spent their time there. Although she lost her mother just a couple of years ago, she has her mother’s photo album from the summer when they met. Her plan is to go to Jersey and see those places as they are now, and add texture to the adorable meet-cute story of her parents.
But you know what they say about making plans. Things go awry almost immediately, when she gets stuck on the plane with a sexist, grabs the wrong suitcase at the airport, and gets a grumpy old cab driver who makes the mistake of telling her to smile. She feels bad about unloading on him, especially when he apologizes and agrees to help her find the places on the island where her mother’s pictures are from.
Laura now has a plan with cab driver Beardy McBeardface to recreate her mother’s photos for her story, but when she gets to her hotel room she opens her suitcase to find that it’s not hers. But it does have her father’s favorite book in it, along with some Phil Collins sheet music, and her mother’s perfume. Clearly, the universe brought her here to meet this man. He must be her destiny.
Laura tries to find Suitcase Guy while tracing her parents story. But when the things she hears from her father’s family is different than what she had always heard from her mother, she starts to wonder how much she really knew about her parents’ love story, or about love herself. Will she be able to find love on Jersey like her mother did, or will she once again miss her kablammo?
Just Haven’t Met You Yet is the romantic comedy that turns that meet-cute idea upside-down. The charming story has great characters, fun situations, and a fabulous setting. Jersey becomes as important a part of the story as the characters, adding interest and texture through its sights, its foods, its beaches, and its people. Author Sophie Cousens brings her love of Jersey to these pages and uses it to infuse this story with interest and warmth.
I loved Just Haven’t Met You Yet. It’s filled with embarrassing moments and characters who are willing to laugh about, with mistakes that characters are willing to admit to and apologize for, and with real moments of connection and humanity. While it’s pretty obvious who ends up together in the story, the journey is delightful, and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss a single page of this book.
Egalleys for Just Haven’t Met You Yet were provided by G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley, with many thanks.
