the story was kind of slow starting and before I finally was into the book I felt like forcing myself to read it. With barely ten pages to go everything is going perfectly and gets tied up witb a neat bow just as Gervase decide's to disappear from the London family home. So he sells his business, but not before giving Ned a high-paying, important job and tells him to stay in his flat while he's gone. The common thread and main topic is love, under all its forms : parental, brotherly, friendship, romantic love, love of life.

The strangely diffuse characterized parents of these boys hosting a complete stranger who turns out to be a weirdo and a loser (LJ has a soft spot for losers), whose true intentions remain unclear, as it is also unclear why his advice is appreciated by anybody. The characters are witty and real, their dilemmas are poignant, and Lisa Jewell ties the whole thing together with enough romance to satisfy even the most jaded reader. But, with the release of her new work "A Friend of the Family", she goes beyond her previous talent and moves into the higher talent ranking of Helen Fielding and Marian Keyes. One of these brothers was REALLY REALLY dumb and it made me crazy but at the end he sorted everything out, thank god! He does this thing where he holds their hands and looks deep into their eyes and they go all gooey inside and wind up spilling everything to him.I only read this because I have loved almost everything else I have read by Lisa Jewell (her thrillers). Lisa is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over twenty-five languages.

The dilemmas weren't solved immediately, nor in the most obvious way, but the solutions are ultimately satisfying and uplifting.I just love how Lisa Jewell feeds us tiny morsels at a time to keep our attention and curiosity so that we keep flicking those pages. This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Sean's been staying at Milly's place for a few weeks and he gets the bright idea to propose to her with the thought that they wouldn't actually get married for a few years.

I highly recommend A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY, I would encourage everyone to put this at the top of their summer reading list. The character for whom the book is titled appears so infrequently the first half of the book I kept wondering why he is even in the story. I still gave it 3 stars because in the end I kind of understood the story and thought it was kind of okay. The three brothers are dysfunctional and spoiled, and the blame for their problems is shunted onto the women in their lives. Ned left his girlfriend and took off to Australia, only to come back to his girlfriend with the perfect life, and all of his friends gone.

The previous Lisa Jewell books I've read were suspense thrillers, this was more a love triangle and it wasn't thrilling in any way. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. The only reason I didn’t give it one star is because I did finish it so either I am a fool or it deserves two stars for tricking me into hanging in there.