Review – Tempting Fate by Jane Green

By | October 12, 2013
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When Gabby first met Elliott she knew he was the man for her. In twenty years of marriage she has never doubted her love for him – even when he refused to give her the one thing she still wants most of all. But now their two daughters are growing up Gabby feels that time and her youth are slipping away. For the first time in her life she is restless. And then she meets Matt…


I’m not a particular fan of Jane Green – the only book of hers I’ve ever read is The Beach House. I gave it three stars on Goodreads and called it “light and unchallenging”, but I did vow to try her writing again. This new one attracted me with its forty-something main character and intriguing story line – I do find it difficult these days to identify with the fun-packed lives of twenty-somethings.

I have to say I really enjoyed this one. Twenty years into what has been a good and comfortable marriage to Elliot, Gabby becomes aware of time slipping away from her and feels attractive and exciting again when she meets Matt on a girls’ night out. He’s much younger than her, rich and devastatingly attractive, and he makes her feel wanted again. And so starts Gabby’s “year of insanity”, with her life very quickly hurtling out of control.

This is a really well written book, and the reader watches the rapid disintegration of Gabby’s life with enormous sympathy and growing dread.  Jane Green writes really well about complicated family relationships, grown up friendships and torn loyalties, and the little resentments that can drive a wedge through relationships. The story never strays from the believable, and it is really compulsive reading.

Jane Green Warburg is a former journalist who gave up her job on the Daily Express to write a real woman’s account of being single in the city. That account became Jane’s first novel, Straight Talking. It was followed by nine more bestselling novels: Jemima J, Mr Maybe, Bookends, Babyville, Spellbound, The Other Woman, Life Swap, Second Chance and The Beach House. Jane has four children and lives in Connecticut.

Published in paperback and Kindle editions on 12th September 2013 by Penguin Books UK, my thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the advance reading e-copy.