Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order-from her good friends to her burgeoning career. But even Alice has to admit it's been an odd week. Not only has her belligerent neighbour, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable confidant, but he's encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life.
What's more, the peculiarly insistent Mr. Daldry has even agreed to finance Alice's trip-one that against all reason seems to be predestined. It's on this journey, crazy from the outset and strangely irresistible, that Alice will find out that nothing in her life is real, that her past is not true, and that the six people she's about to encounter will shape her future in ways she could never have dreamed.
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['I never believed I had a particular destiny, or that signs in my life were guiding me toward a path I ought to take. I didn't believe in fortune-tellers or tart cards. I just believed in simple coincidence and in the significance of chance happenings']***
(AmazonCrossing, 5 February 2019, ebook, 278 pages, borrowed from @AmazonKindle, Kindle Owner's Lending Library)
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The book starts off really well. I was engrossed from the start. The book is well written and a lot of intrigue is built between Daldry and Alice. Just what are his motivations considering how unpleasant he's been since Alice moved into the flat below him? Why is Alice so quick to accept his offer when he's been so rude and unpleasant to her? My enjoyment starts to wane when Daldry lets one of their guides know his true, selfish motivations. This really put me off the book. Unfortunately, things went downhill from this point and my enjoyment waned more and more. The ending is also a cop-out. This could have been great but didn't live up to the potential created in the first 50 pages or so.