Sophia Rose is here with a review of The Good-bye Girls by Juliet Domvile a quirky, small-town debut novel you’ll want to check out.

The Good-bye Girls
by Juliet Domvile
Genres: Women’s Fiction
Source: Publisher
Purchase*: Amazon *affiliate

Rating:

The first client for two newbie funeral planners is a murdered biker. What could go wrong?

When millennial Aislin Fitzgerald’s professional life implodes, she does the only thing she can think of—she bolts for home. But, for Aislin, home is complicated. Her relationship with her grandmother Letty—her sole relative—is awkward and confrontational, and her hometown is filled with memories and people she has been avoiding her entire adult life.

It’s not all bad, though. A chance meeting with Aislin’s former best friend, Sarah, leads to a niche business opportunity. Noticing how entertained Letty is by attending funerals, they form a funeral planning business, the Goodbye Girls. But things get off to a rocky start when their first gig is for a murdered member of the local biker club, and the prime suspect disappears. While bodies stack up, tensions rise and drinks flow; Aislin and Sarah find themselves leagues out of their comfort zones.

As Aislin learns to navigate living under the same roof as her irascible and, as it turns out, lustful grandmother, she also learns to unclench, trust, and accept love in all shapes and sizes. The Goodbye Girls takes you on an entertaining adventure through the trials of friendship and love—and will have you putting the fun in funeral.

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Sophia Rose’s Review

It was cover curiosity that struck me from the first and then the blurb that sealed the deal.  Funeral event-planning besties?  I’m game.  Blending quirky small town, family, friends, and finding oneself, this debut book offered up a lot.

The Goodbye Girls begins with Aislynn returning to her small town after going away to university and a big city journalism job that kept her away for years. She had no intentions of returning, but that was before a mistake destroyed it all.  A complicated relationship with the grandmother who raised her after her parents died, her habit of keeping people at a distance, and pushing off issues that need addressing all come to a head.  While starting up a quirky style of event planning business, for funerals, no less, with her childhood best friend, Aislynn must face down it all while figuring out her present let alone her future.  It’s complicated seems to be struggling Aislynn’s motto.

I knew what I was getting into when the blurb stated Aislynn was a millennial coming home to figure things out.  I did get the impression there might be something of a mystery or excitement with the first client, a biker club burying a murdered member and the killer at large, but mostly this is a far flung personal journey with relationships story that is prevalent in women’s fiction.  I can’t say that I could relate well with Aislyn, but she was a mess in the beginning and vulnerable so I wanted to see her get a bit of her own back.  She had a good heart when she discovered her former roommate was being abused and it was a tough situation that older, mature people could have easily stepped wrong as far as I’m concerned, but it was more than that which had her flailing.  She did prefer to leave issues lay rather than face them which, did eventually bite her in the butt.

There are lots of moving parts in this one and it tends to sprawl rather than stick to a tidy plotline.  It made for a meandering story that I could put down easily, but there was also an endearing quality where I still wanted to keep picking it back up and see Aislynn come into her own.  It was missing the crispness to the plot that would make it a fab book, but there was still so much to love in the small town quirks and heartwarming moments.  Pet turtle, funeral event antics, and oddities for characters were highlights.  Those who enjoy gently-paced, character-driven plots against small town setting should check this one out.

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