Where do you see yourself in five years?
Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan has been in possession of her meticulously crafted answer since she understood the question. On the day that she nails the most important job interview of her career and gets engaged to the perfect man, she's well on her way to fulfilling her life goals.
That night Dannie falls asleep only to wake up in a different apartment with a different ring on her finger, and in the company of a very different man. The TV is on in the background, and she can just make out the date. It's the same night - December 15th - but 2025, five years in the future.
It was just a dream, she tells herself when she wakes, but it felt so real... Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.
That is, until four and a half years later, when Dannie turns down a street and there, standing on the corner, is the man from her dream...
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is published by Quercus on 10 March 2020.
A version of this review was previously published in the Daily Express.
Dannie Kohan is a New York lawyer in her early thirties. She has planned her life meticulously for as long as she can remember.
She has the apartment, the boyfriend and now she has an interview at the law firm that she's dreamt of working for since she was a small girl.
The day of her interview is also the day that her boyfriend David will ask her to marry him. In the perfect Manhattan setting, with the perfect ring, and of course, Dannie knew this would happen. It is all in her plan. After a day of success; she nailed the interview and she said yes to the ring, Dannie falls asleep and has a dream.
She's in a strange apartment, with a strange man and it's five years in the future. Whilst Dannie is unsettled by the dream and often thinks about the feelings it evoked in her, it's not until four and half years later, when she meets the actual man from her dreams that she begins to question her plan.
This is not a traditional love story as Dannie doesn't appear to have one romantic bone in her body. What it is, is a beautifully described story of friendship. For it is Dannie's relationship with her oldest friend Bella that takes centre stage here. The author carefully and intelligently creates the most wonderful, achingly beautiful friendship between two very different women. Dannie's dream, and her five year plan is integral to their story, but it is the true and unfailing loyalty of friends that is the most powerful theme here.
Poignant, thought provoking and captivating.
Rebecca Serle is an author and television writer who lives in New York and Los Angeles. She is the author of six novels and codeveloped the hit TV adaptation of her YA series Famous in Love. She received her MFA from the New School in NYC.
She loves Nancy Meyers films, bathrobes, and giving unsolicited relationship advice.
www.rebeccaserle.com
Twitter @RebeccaASerle
Instagram @rebecca_serle
Author Page on Facebook
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