The Name Game by Beth O'Leary

The Name Game by Beth O'Leary
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Charlie couldn’t be happier to take the job of farm-shop manager on the remote, wild Isle of Ormer. She’s grieving, a little lost, and in desperate need of a fresh start.

Jones has come out of a difficult breakup and is looking forward to some peace away from the noise of his city life. Moving to Ormer couldn’t have come at a better time.

But when Charlie Jones and, ahem, Charlie Jones both turn up at Ormer’s one and only farm shop, claiming to have been offered the role of manager, everyone is baffled. How could this have happened? And just who is the real Charlie Jones?
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I think it was between The Switch and The Road Trip that I decided that I would be reading every book that Beth O'Leary wrote for the rest of her career and that I hoped that career would be good and long. First of all, her characters are always so enjoyable. Getting to know them through the pages of her books is always a fun time. The banter between her MMC and FMC in all of her novels have always been delightful to read. She does forced proximity so well, but it is always with a little bit of a surprising take, not in a repetitive or predictable way that makes it seem to be too trope-y. And the portions of this book that are made up of an epistolary format are woven seamlessly into the other more narrative timelines that eventually come together to bring us a twisty surprise (I did not know quite how she was going to pull everything together at the end, but I loved where we ended up!). There are some serious topics that are tackled in this one, including grief and early stages of recovery from alcoholism, and they are handled with sensitivity. I think the fact that I started and finished in one day speaks for itself!

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