Review: In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

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...


The evening Dannie gets engaged to her perfect partner David she has a dream - a flash forward to the future where she is in a strange apartment, and a strange bed, with a man who is not her fiance. It feels like a premonition but Dannie tries to forget it and get on with her life. Until suddenly the mystery man from her dream appears. And he's dating her best friend Bella.

I can't really say much more without giving away what happens, but this book certainly packs an emotional punch, one that really comes out of nowhere. You know that something has to happen to break both couples up but you don't know what, and so you're on edge the whole way through. Or at least I was! When the twist comes the whole story shifts gear, and it becomes clear who the central relationship of this novel really is. Cosy romance this is not, and I loved how the blurb gives absolutely nothing away, despite the fact that we know how it all ends. Sort of.

The tag line really sums this book up - this is a love story, but not the love story you're expecting. It's an exploration of love in all of its forms, and, above all, a celebration of friendship.

**Thank you to Milly Reid at Quercus books for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for a review!**