Journal Entry: The No Show by Beth O'Leary

Dear Reader,

We’re going to hop around point of views for a bit as this story is told in three different perspectives, so keep up. We start this story meeting one of the protagonists, Siobhan (a name I never knew how to pronounce), after she’s stood up on Valentines Day. Next, we meet Miranda who is also stood up on Valentines Day, by a man named Carter. And finally, there is Jane who got stood up at an engagement party by a friend named Joseph. Let’s return to Siobhan, can you guess who she was stood up by? The guy who ends up running to all her favorite hotels to find her? Joseph freaking Carter.How interesting is that? Anyways, he asks her for one night to earn her forgiveness and she gives it to him.

Back to Miranda for a moment. Carter, yes Joseph Carter, showed up at her incredibly dangerous job with flowers and a bag of apologies. He invites her to stay at his place over the weekend, to explain his absence and properly apologize. Of course, she agrees after slight hesitation. She goes to meet him in Winchester, where Carter is staying with his mother. While Miranda is there, guess who Mary(Carter’s mother) thinks she is? Siobhan. However, the jerk plays it off like it’s her dementia that is making her confused.

Speaking of Siobhan, she slept with Joseph Carter in her hotel room the other night. She also reveals that Joseph Carter used to be a client of hers.

Through all this madness, we find out a little bit more of one of our protagonists. Jane. A woman named Lou finds her in Winchester, they used to work together in London. Lou mentions something about their time in London, about what caused Jane to leave. It’s not revealed what that thing is, just that it is a he-said-she-said sort of thing and apparently Jane has more people on her side than she thought.

Now, Joseph Carter is out for his friend’s birthday and he ends up inviting Siobhan to join him. That’s not the crazy part, the real crazy part is the next morning Siobhan realizes her period is late. Dun. Dun. DUNNNNN.

Anyways, after Siobhan kicks Joseph out, he goes to see Miranda. He accidentally left his coat there on the way out. Miranda’s sister, and roommate,has the bright idea to go through the pockets where she finds a receipt. Miranda however, is confused because the receipt reveals that Joseph had lied about where he had been the night before.

Jane invites Joseph to yet another event, this time a wedding. He agrees to play her fake boyfriend once more.

Siobhan now knows she’s not pregnant, and has been ignoring Joseph–ghosting him really. She’s traveling and taking a break from work to figure out her next step, with her friends by her side of course.

Miranda and Joseph seem to be doing better than ever. They’re closer, more intimate, and spend far more time together than before. While getting ready for a Halloween party, Joseph asks Miranda to look through his phone for an address. She stumbles upon a recurring calendar date written by another woman. Joseph feels bad and deletes it right in front of her, in hopes of appeasing her.

Jane is visited again by Lou, and this time she warns her that someone from London is looking for her. Her life in London is coming to bite her in the ass. And so, she ends things with Joseph and moves to hide.

Miranda finds a letter from Joseph to Siobhan. In the middle of a New Years party, she confronts him about it. Joseph reveals that he still had feelings for Siobhan, but they had actually been seeing each other roughly two years ago. Basically half of this book took place around 2015-2016 while the other half was happening in 2018, and no one told us.

Speaking of Siobhan, back in 2016, she told Joseph that she was in love with him. And he loved her back, awww. They had agreed to meet again, on Valentines Day when tragedy struck.

Jane moves back to Winchester and decides to face her problem from London. Her problem is a man she had been seeing, he was her boss and paid her off to keep quiet about their relationship.

Miranda finds love in an unlikely, yet somewhat obvious, place. And Jane finally gets her happy ending. While Siobhan is left in the past.

-Grace Sofia