The No-Show

On Valentine's Day, three women in three different cities are waiting for the same man. Career coach Siobhan expects Joseph Carter for breakfast in Dublin, sure the early hour means he is finally ready to get serious. Tree surgeon Miranda has booked a lunch in London to celebrate her new job and their five months together.

In Winchester, Jane is counting on him to play her fake boyfriend at a friend's engagement party. Joseph does not turn up to any of the three.

In the weeks after, the women's lives start to overlap, and each one turns up a piece of a man none of them fully knows. He works in IT in London. He disappears to Winchester on no fixed schedule, where his mother is living with dementia. His absences never quite add up, and the little he does explain does not fit together.

Told only from the three women's points of view, Beth O'Leary's contemporary romance works as a gentle mystery about where Joseph actually is, alongside a story about the relationships he has left hanging. The mood stays mostly light and character driven, though Jane is working through an old trauma that runs underneath the comedy.