Cocktails for Three

by Madeline Wickham (better known under the pen name Sophie Kinsella

Maggie, Candice, and Roxanne work together at a magazine called The Londoner. Every month they meet at the same bar for cocktails and girl time. The three are very different from each other but close friends all the same. Maggie is the magazines no-nonsense editor-in-chief. Roxanne is a slightly wild free lance travel journalist, and Candice is an extremely naïve, sweet tempered reporter. As the story begins, Maggie is about to go on maternity leave. She doesn’t tell Roxanne and Candice but she’s secretly terrified of becoming a mother. She hasn’t even read a single book on parenting or taken a prenatal class. Roxanne has been having an affair with a married man for years. Her friends know about it, but they have no idea who Roxanne’s lover is. Candice is so good-natured and innocent it’s hard for anybody to believe she has a dirty little secret, but this fateful night Maggie and Roxanne discover that she does.

A waitress comes to the table, and Candice is shocked to see that it is an old schoolmate of hers named Heather. Candice reveals to her friends that her father was a world class conman. He secretly swindled many of his friends and acquaintances out of very large sums of money. Candice and her mother only found out about his scandalous deeds after his untimely death. It just so happens that Candice’s father brought Heather’s father to financial ruin. Candice remembers that Heather’s family pulled her out of school because they could no longer afford the tuition. Candice realized after the fact it was her father’s fault that Heather and her family fell on hard times, and she feels incredibly guilty.

Candice decides to make it up to Heather by taking her under her wing. She gets Heather a job at the magazine and allows her to move into her apartment rent free. Heather knows next to nothing about working for a magazine, so Candice finds herself helping her a great deal more than she had planned. Maggie and Roxanne are both suspicious of Heather and of how much she seems to be taking advantage of Candice’s goodwill. Meanwhile Maggie is feeling absolutely overwhelmed by her life as a new mother, and Roxanne struggles with the pain of loving someone who isn’t fully hers.

The stories of the three women overlap and intertwine, but in a book with three main characters I expected the stories to affect each other more. For the most part Maggie, Roxanne and Candice are on three completely separate plot paths. I suppose that interweaving the stories was not really the author’s intention. It is more likely that she wanted to tell a story about three good friends whose lives part for a while but come back together when they need each other the most.

One complaint I have about this book is that the romance between Roxanne and her secret lover was not developed enough. I felt that I didn’t know him well enough to really feel for Roxanne when things appeared to be unraveling. I had a prejudice against the character to begin with because he had been cheating on his wife for years with Roxanne, so I really needed a reason to like him, and I just didn’t feel I got that.

I was also unhappy with the resolution of Candice’s story. I don’t want to give much away, but the way she finally made peace with her father’s actions kind of fell flat for me. Candice’s character kind of drove me nuts anyway. I seem to be particularly irked by gullible characters. I find myself thinking, “Really!? Can anyone really be that clueless?”

I enjoyed Maggie’s story the most because I could relate to it. At first, however, I was FURIOUS with her character. I was really appalled that she hadn’t seemed to prepare for being a parent at all. Her attitude seemed so flippant. And I was more than a little freaked out when her character began nonchalantly imbibing cocktails. But when Maggie did have the baby, and she was trying her best to be a good mother struggling at home alone feeling strung out and overwhelmed, I totally felt for her. I thought it was very realistic, especially when Maggie is afraid to tell her husband and mother-in-law how freaked out and tired she is because she’s afraid it will mean she’s a bad mother.

There were also moments of humor I very much enjoyed. Roxanne’s witty quips and observations were lots of fun. And I relished the moment when a certain smarmy character got just what he deserved. While this isn’t a book I can see myself reading again and again, I would consider reading something else by the same author. It was a fun read, and I didn’t have any serious problems with the story. If you like the “chick lit” genre, you would probably enjoy this book.