Cocktails for Three by Madeleine Wickham (Review)

Title : Cocktails for Three

Author : Madeleine Wickham

Publisher : Black Swan 

Num. of Pages : 304

Three great friends, smart and successful, meet for cocktails and gossip once a month.

Roxanne : glamorous, self-confident, with a secret lover - will he ever leave his wife and marry her?

Maggie : capable and high-achieving - will she take motherhood in her stride?

Candice : honest, decent, or so she believes - how will she cope when a ghost from her past turns up?

Then one night a conversation with a cocktail waitress sets in train an extraordinary chain of events which will affect all three women's lives. Will their friendship survive?

My opinion :

Roxanne Miller : She is very confident. As a woman, she is so powerful with her edgy style and a fabulous kind of look. She is one regular free lancer at The Londoner, an editing company which both her best friends work at. She has a secret love with the boss at the editorial company but she keeps it secret, even her best friends have no idea about it. 

She is carefree, but has so much passion for the ones she loves, especially her significant other. Despite the furious and edgy looks she puts on, she cares about her friends so much. She would do anything to help and comfort her two friends, if they got into trouble. But after one conversation between her and her lover, her life started to change. She becomes someone so depressed, she shuts everyone down and brings herself away to France. And to her surprise, something terrible had happened in London. 

Maggie Phillips : A high-achiever who becomes the asset of the company where she works at, which is The Londoner. She is so passionate about her work and loves it so much that the thought of motherhood sickens her. The thought of her having to sit at home, being a mother and rocking a baby scares her. She is scared that she won't be able to take care of her baby. She is scared she won't be a good mum. 

After her baby girl was born, her life changes 360 degrees. She has to sit at home, at her big house which her husband had bought for them in The Pines, miles away from London. She feels as though she's being excluded from her best friends, excluded from everything at the office. She has no company at The Pines rather than her mother-in-law, Paddy, who doesn't seem to be on the same page with her. She feels disturbed by the presence of Paddy because she feels Paddy would criticize everything she does when it comes to taking care of her baby. Later, one evening during their meet up at The Manhattan Bar, something awful has happened that turned her life upside down. 

Candice Brewin : A decent, sensible and trustworthy kind of girl. She is the sweetest and probably the kindest among the three of them. She works as one of the editorial assistants at The Londoner, and loves her job. One night during their gossip session at The Manhattan Bar, a waitress who took their order happened to be her old friend, back in high school. Heather Trelawney, a sweet girl with an innocent look in her eyes, was a girl whose dreams and hopes were crushed because of Candice's late father's horrible act. Candice's father had deceived and led people on with his words throughout his life, including Frank Trelawney. He had deceived their money until they became impoverished. 

Later, Candice, who wanted to make amend of her father's deeds, had gotten Heather a position at The Londoner as a journalist and also had invited her to stay at her apartment for free. Little did she knew, Heather was only using her just to seek revenge of what her father had done to her family. At first, it was going well between her and Heather. But Heather, the shady girl went behind her back complaining things to their boss about Candice's false expenses and claims. Maggie and Roxanne had warned her to not believe the girl easily, but Candice, who feels so guilty about what happened in the past didn't care about her friends' advice. To her surprise, Heather did something so horrible to her that she got suspended from her job. 

A book full of moral values and lessons about family, relationship and friendship. We don't need to see our friends every day to be close with them. The people who we remember by heart, and whom we would turn up to when things go wrong, that's true friendship.

I give it a 3 and a half star.

Up next - New York Valentine by Carmen Reid.