Cover Image: In Five Years

In Five Years

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Member Reviews

The premise of this book was intriguing and, although I thought I knew what would happen, there was an interesting twist which kept me guessing. At times, I found the book upsetting and emotional, which is a sign that it was successful in sweeping me up in its world.

I thought this book was well-written; it explored relationships, careers, feelings of obligation and different types of love. It was a good reminder that life doesn't always work out in accordance with the best-laid plans.

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I really enjoyed this book, and was really able to connect with the characters.
It didn't take me long into the story to find myself thinking about it when I wasn't reading it, and wanting to read it more!
A great story, would highly recommend.

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Oh dear. How shall I start on this one? This is only my second review for Netgalley and I feel like I’m letting them (and the author) down by saying I didn’t actually enjoy the book? If I reveal too much about the reasons why, it could be a bit spoilery. The truth is, this one should come with a trigger warning. I came in expecting a feel-good story about romance and time travel but I got something else instead.

I was enjoying it, actually, as an easy to read novel, about young people in love and having really taxing jobs and revelling about having to work almost 24/7. Except for the unnecessary name-dropping for 1) every brand in existence in corporate (North) America and 2) every stylish place ever in New York when I haven’t been and know nothing about, you know. I felt a bit left out for not knowing them, or even heard about them. And then, whoosh comes the trigger and, yeah, I wasn’t pleased.

The characters also aren’t really relatable, to me anyway. In comes Danielle, or Dannie, corporate lawyer, workaholic, likes having no time off and simply sleeping at the office for days at a time (what?? the strangest concept to me), makes a ton of money out of it; David, her boyfriend, also rich, less workaholic, is tall and lanky, as per usual; Bella, Dannie’s best friend, REALLY RICH, is a jetsetter, can’t seem to settle down with anyone; and then Aaron Gregory, Bella’s boyfriend, no idea who he is except that he’s an architect and likes tennis.

Anyway. If you don’t mind stories like these, go for it. Who am I to keep people away from books, right? But, on the other hand, if you do… well, see for yourself?

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A slow start with this one for me, but half way through it really picked up and I was turning the pages as fast as I could. Not what I expected, but brought a few tears to my eyes.

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This book surprised me, delighted me and broke my heart. It was not at all what I expected, but was all the more special for that. Cleverly, Serle wrong foots the reader into thinking this is a straight forward romance, but it really isn’t. It’s about love and just as our heroine Dannie is some times unsure what love looks like, so is the reader. We read certain conventions and have expectations about how the story will unfold. It teaches us that sometimes we don’t notice or fully appreciate what we already have.

Dannie is a corporate lawyer, living in Manhattan and dating the eminently eligible David. David and Dannie live together after dating for two years. They have done everything according to an unspoken timetable; everything about their relationship is planned and just right. In fact their relationship is so predictable that when David suggests dinner at the Rainbow Room, Dannie knows he’s going to propose. She says yes when he presents the perfect engagement ring, but they don’t plan their wedding. They continue to drift along as they are until Dannie has the dream.

A vivid dream shows a loft apartment in Dumbo with interior design details such as an art print of an optician’s chart with a witty slogan. It’s nowhere Dannie can imagine living. It’s trendy and edgy. She and David live in Gramercy Park. A perfect location for their work and where they are in life. Yet, the Dumbo apartment feels comfortable. Then a man appears. She’s never met him before but yet there is a connection, something she can’t define. As he moves closer she feels actual electricity. She has never felt this before. Like some huge force compels them to be together. When she wakes, Dannie feels strange. Like she’s questioning everything around her.

She has planned to see her friend Bella. They have been friends since boarding school and are still incredibly close. Bella takes more risks than Dannie and in some ways Dannie sees her as someone who doesn’t finish things. Bella loves art, she lives to travel and has a more bohemian outlook on life. Dannie has a more settled and perhaps, conventional life where work is the priority and her stable relationship with David simply ticks along. Up until now Bella hasn’t had a stable relationship in her life, but she has brought someone important to meet Dannie. When he walks in, Dannie is shocked to see the man from her dream. She panics and decides to do everything she can to stop her dream from coming true. But life can take strange turns and a series of events unfold that she never imagined. They make her rethink everything about how to live life and how to love.

I became so involved with Dannie and Bella’s story that it was hard to put the book down towards the end. The story crept up on me from something very light to an emotional tale about the strength of female friendship. These girls are life partners. Their presence sustains each other in ways that romantic relationships sometimes don’t. Bella’s mother lets slip that she purposely placed her daughter in the same school as Dannie, because she saw them together and could not part them. The very structure of the book teaches the reader something. We learn, at the same time as Dannie, that the happy ending is not always about a man, because love comes in many forms. Also, that loss and love are the same thing. When we grieve it just proves how much we loved. I found myself becoming very emotional towards the end of the book and that rarely happens. I found the writing so truthful and similar to my own experience of grief that I had a lump in my throat. I loved the ending and the fact it wasn’t predictable elevated the book above the ordinary. I will be hugging my friends a little closer and appreciating all the people in my life who love me.

I will be posting this review on my blog and social media during the blog blast 2nd-10th March,

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I have heard so many positive things about this book, and I can see why. Set in New York it is predominantly a story about friendship and the love that we can find with our closest friends - which are often our most enduring adult relationships.
Such a novel idea for the main character to have a dream about a snap shot of her life five years into the future that feels so real, and the impact it then has on her life.
I definitely recommend this one.
Thank you to the publishers and author and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read and

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Dannie is a woman who knows what she wants and when she wants it, down to the whitefish bagel she has for lunch on winner days. We readers meet her as she is about to ace an interview for her dream job and then get engaged to on the same day, winning indeed.

Just to warn you – there will be minor spoilers, as the book has a bit of time travel/future prediction in it and I want to talk about what that looks like and felt like to read.

Dannie and her nice, dependable fiancé, David, live in NYC overlooking Grammercy Park. She has her dream job at the high powered legal firm she’s dreamed about her whole life, and he his role at a hedge fund, described as ‘more relaxed’ than hers. I don’t know much about hedge funds but I’m not entirely sure it’d be more relaxed – maybe I’m wrong!

On the night of their engagement, as she already correctly predicted, she falls asleep in their apartment and dreams she’s living in another apartment, with a blonde man who is nothing like David. They have a conversation, have sex and she wakes up to her life with David.

She replays this and even goes to a therapist about it. Again, I’ve never had a flashforward five years into the future, but I reckon I could probably be sure that even if it didn’t actually happen, it probably meant I was having second thoughts on the ol’ ball and chain. Her best friend, Bella, is introduced as the cheese to her chalk – flighty, disorganised and heartbroken a million times over. Until she meets this guy…. Yep, you guessed it – the one from the dream!!

This felt like a good idea which didn’t have the plot or the narrative to back it up. Dannie spends a lot of time in and out of places to eat, describing her outfit, her friend’s outfit or her boyfriend’s. It wasn’t badly written, at all, it just grated on me personally as I picked up on the repetition in the rhythm of the chapters.

It also hurtled towards five years later really fast – it skipped a few years and then suddenly Bella’s sick, and Dannie and David mysteriously haven’t got married yet. I was definitely shouting, internally, at least; ‘you don’t want to marry him! You don’t have to marry anyone if you don’t want to!”

I found it hard to be surprised by the future arriving when Dannie had done all she could to make it happen – this wasn’t really a question of free will or not, she follows the guy around while he’s hanging with her best friend, and that made it difficult to be sympathetic, to be honest.

I found this pretty easy to read and skipped through it in a day or so. It’s a good beach read, or commute book – I can’t see it becoming as ubiquitous as One Day, though, and that may simply be because the characters weren’t drawn deep enough for me.

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Oh my word! This book was just lovely! I don’t usually go for romantic fiction but this one was something special.
Dannie has a plan for her life. The night after she gets engaged to her boyfriend of 2 years she wakes up in an unfamiliar apartment with an unfamiliar man and the date is 5 years In the future! She decides to put the experience to the back of her mind and get on with her planned life. But it’s not that simple.
It’s a really lovely story with love at its heart.
I loved it...4.5 stars!

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Dannie has a five year plan, marry David, become junior partner at her dream firm and buy a house in Gramercy Park. When Dannie falls asleep the night she becomes engaged she dreams of a life she hasn’t planned for, including a man who wasn’t David, when she wakes up it all seemed so real.

Bella is an artist, gallery owner and free spirit. She has never stuck with one man for long, flitting between countries settling down has never been a priority for her. Until she meets Greg and falls head over heals.

Dannie and Bella have been best friends since they were seven years old. They have shared everything. The ups and downs, tears and triumphs. They are one another’s soulmate. So when a crisis occurs their friendship is at the centre and they realise that love is everything.

I really didn’t expect the story to take the twists it did. I can’t say much as it will ruin it. But I was an emotional wreck for the most part.

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The friendship between Dannie (straight laced, on a 5 year plan and engaged to just the right kind of man) and Bella (much more relaxed, arty and fly-by-the-seat-of-your -pants) is beautifully portrayed throughout this novel but really comes into its own about 6 months before the end of the 5 years the book spans.
When Dannie wakes up 5 years ahead of reality after a boozy night and in the bed of another man I fell into the "not another time lapse story" trap only to read on and find out it is really anything but that!
Dannie only time hops once- it freaks her out but she puts it down to a dream, which then becomes an emotional problem for her and she seeks help in the form of therapy, believing herself to be losing her grip on reality.
Meanwhile her life continues on as normally as it can, engaged and happy with great friends and a great job she stumbles on through 4 years or so before disaster hits and brings her face to face with her imaginary dream man in all his technicolour reality.
I really enjoyed the glimpse into the future and the way it was handled by Dannie- much more realistic than in other books where characters just shrug and accept they are catapulting back and forth through time!

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I really enjoyed this heartwarming story of the friendship between his friends, Dannie and Bella. Both polar opposites who met as 7 year olds and who have remained close until their early 30s. Dannie has a plan for her future - she is a high flying corporate lawyer with the perfect fiancée who complements her, a good working life with the top firm, recognition and respect. Bella ha# taken time to settle but now runs an art gallery and is in love. Then Bella is diagnosed with ovarian cancer and Dannie has to deal with this and the aftermath of her own vision of what will happen in 5 years time - which could potentially destroy their friendship forever.

A must read story focusing on trust, friendship and the reality of love.

I will be recommending this book!

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For me this started out as a decent book about a Dannie, a woman with a very clear plan of her future until a bizarre dream of her life in five years time causes her to doubt her future with her fiancé David. Her plans mostly continue as she’s intended for 4.5 years however something is holding her back from marrying David and an encounter with the man from her bizarre dream leaves her panicking and fearful of her future. About halfway through though this decent book spun me with the direction it took and from them on I was hooked, engrossed, captivated you name it. Rebecca Serle has nailed this, it’s thoughtful, funny and searingly painful and truly looks at what love is.

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Where do you see yourself in five years?

Manhattan lawyer Dannie Cohan thinks she knows the answer to this. She's got it all planned out. She's just nailed the interview for her dream job and later that evening she gets engaged to her boyfriend, David.

That night she falls asleep and wakes up to find 5 years have passed. She's in an unfamiliar apartment, there's a different ring on her finger, and she's with a guy who is definitely not David. She's confused. What happened to the future she had planned?

One hour later, she wakes up again, back in her current life. The experience shakes her, but she's determined to put it to the back of her mind. Until four-and-a-half year later when she meets the very same man from her dream...

I was not emotionally prepared for this book! It's hard to write this review without giving away spoilers, so I'll keep it brief.

I went into this expecting a standard romance novel, but it's so much more than that. This is a powerful story about love and friendship. It highlights how much your life can change in just 6 months. It tugged at my emotions, and I sobbed my way through the ending.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book.

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I quite literally finished this book 3 minutes ago and I am just sat like this 😩 as I just don’t know how to feel.
I loved this book so much, the writing style was beautiful, the characters were amazing, I cried like a baby.

The perfect story - I thought it would be like ‘One Day in December’ but I was infinitely wrong. It was absolutely different. So beautiful and really just don’t have the words to write it all down.

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I really don’t know what to make of this book as I was left feeling a little confused. The book started off going on about numbers and the central character said she was a numbers person, but then numbers weren’t really mentioned again, so I don’t know what that was all about. It was then very quickly a little bit like sneaking a peak at the last few pages to see what happens, as we then kind of knew how the book was going to end so we knew that certain characters weren’t going to be in the central character’s life at the end one way or the other. It then seemed to move along very quickly throughout the five years until we came to the illness which I found too upsetting to read and skim read most of that part. Then the ending confused me as I don’t understand how they ended up kissing and then later sleeping together after what they had just gone through and I didn’t feel much attraction between them up to those points. I was also confused about the engagement ring, as at the start when she went back in time, she said she was wearing an engagement ring, which must have been on her ring finger, otherwise she would have thought it was a dress ring, but at the end she said it was on the middle finger, so that bit confused me. And then right at the very end after they had slept together, he left, then she went to a café and met someone else so all in all a bit confusing.

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What a book!

I´ve been stuck in a bit of a reading slump since the beginning of the year and wondered how to get out of it. This seems to have done the trick. I picked this up yesterday and spent most of today in my pjs reading it. I loved it!

I don´t want to say anything about the plot because I really don´t want to give anything away. I was intrigued by the blurb and it didn´t disappoint. I thought the storyline was great, the characters were interesting and I love a book that´s set in New York.

The story is about friendship, love, and being in love, but also about loss and grief, Reading it was definitely a bit of a rollercoaster and I may have been a bit emotional at times (I wonder if a trigger warning might be useful here).

Sometimes, when I give a book a 5-star rating, I wonder if it really was that good, if the writing deserves it, if the character development was strong enough, etc.,.. I´ve decided it doesn´t matter. I enjoyed this book immensely and there might be people, who won´t enjoy it as much, but I enjoyed every minute of reading it, so to me, it was a brilliant read!

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This was a really engaging read with an unexpected storyline that kept me hooked. It was really well written and the characters really leapt off the page. I had no idea where it was heading and that added to my enjoyment immensely.

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This book is touching, emotional and totally unexpected. It should definitely come with a warning that once you start reading it, you’ll not be able to put it down.
I was a little sceptical of the first few pages but I quickly got into it and all of the characters.
This one will definitely stay with me for a long time.

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Beautiful. Heartbreaking. Unexpected. I couldn’t put this down & read it all in one sitting. A joy of a book filled with love, hope & friendship

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I needed to wait a few days after finishing this book before I could review it as I wanted to reflect on it.

From the blurb:
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...

I don’t know what I was expecting from this book but it wasn’t this!! I didn’t expect the love radiating from it nor the heartbreak it brought. I laughed, I cried and I prayed. It is a wonderful wonderful book. I loved all the characters, some more than others and I loved the book. A must read for everyone.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced read copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased and honest review.

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