Well Birdy Finch didn't just imagine it. She did it. Which might've been an error. And the life she's run into? Her best friend, Heather's.
The only problem is, she hasn't told Heather. Actually there are a few other problems...
Can Birdy carry off a summer at a luxury Scottish hotel pretending to be her best friend (who incidentally is a world-class wine expert)?
And can she stop herself from falling for the first man she's ever actually liked (but who thinks she's someone else)?
Comment: This book caught my attention last year but since I wasn't able to read it then, I've saved it for this summer, after all the title is quite suggestive to suit this time of the year...
In this novel we follow heroine Elizabeth "Birdy" Finch, as she impersonates her friend Heather in what would supposedly be an easy summer job. Heather is a sommelier and she was supposed to go to a rundown restaurant in Scotland but Birdy forgets to call them declining the job offer as a favor to Heather. Later, when Birdy meets the manager of that hotel in a posh event where she's using Heather's name tag so she and casual mate Tim can drink wine for free, Birdy is stuck and can't easily refuse. She decides to go and check the restaurant, whose online reviews are terrible, thinking she will have quick money for three months, after all how hard can it be? The problem is that the restaurant and adjacent hotel have been revamped to something exquisite and now Birdy has to pretend she knows what she is doing among professional people who would think "Heather" wasn't competent. How is Birdy going to fix this mess now?
From the start, Birdy is described as someone without the belief she is a worthy person. We learn her childhood was harsh because her father is an alcoholic and her mother always tried to minimize or hide it, even at the expanse of Birdy herself, or by letting her believe she did bad things or by ignoring her opinions. Birdy learned to simply present a happy or a bubbly surface and not let others truly care about her. This made her feel adrift, though, and except for Heather, she only interacts with people on the surface.
I can understand how this and her own personality of assuming a confidence she doesn't really have, would shape her decisions and the apparent lack of goals in her life. I could also accept the inner explanation she tells herself why she is taking Heather's place at a job she had no business getting into, especially after she realizes things weren't as she imagined. If she was entering a place where her lack of skills would be so obvious, instead of the basic restaurant she expected, why didn't she leave? It's not hard to guess why, Birdy says is often, but while a little stupid, I can imagine the situation of not wanting to show weakness or having to tell the truth.
Shenanigans ensue as one can imagine, and some of the tactics Birdy uses to try to hide her ignorance of a subject she should know well were, sometimes, cute to watch. The problem is that this didn't affect only her person, but everyone else working there, both her fellow restaurant workers, and the ones in management, and it's certainly more difficult to carry on a lark if people's real feelings are involved in something. I was starting to dread the moment the truth would come out, to be honest, but when it does, it wasn't as dramatic as I pictured.
I mean, I think the author could have added the tension but there's the sense the idea was to leave things at a more mid to light vibe. I also think part of the story line was to see how Birdy would feel when doing something she had to dedicate her time and her study to, and the positive outcome of it. I think the part of the story where Birdy is trying to do her best to maintain Heather's reputation while still learning she can do something well, that she can be trusted with having a job she ends up liking and that others respect her for, does reinforce the idea she can do this. Not by lying of course, but since she was caught up in such a situation, which snowballed somehow, she does try.
It was also good to learn some stuff about wines - it seems the author did a proper research - as well as about Scotland. There's also a small romance between Birdy and a co worker, which develops in a very natural way, but since many believe Birdy/Heather had a boyfriend, this was, from a certain point, something else to worry Birdy. It didn't get to any silly point, because when they do get involved in a more serious manner the plot is advanced, we could already see they liked each other and we, as the reader, knew it wasn't serious between Birdy and Tim.
As the story was getting to the end, many coincidences happen but how to solve this after all, in a believable way? I think the way people discover the truth was a little easier than I imagined, but at the same time it was a bit too much like a comedy of errors. I suppose I'd have preferred something more emotional, or seemingly so, and while the actual choice did allow me to wonder about the characters's state of mind, it wasn't as engaging as I would like.
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