Times Like These explores the relationship and drama between friends. Each woman had her own story to tell and her own turmoil to deal with. This book was full of drama and I enjoyed reading from each woman's perspective.

Times Like These follows the stories of three best friends as they face life events that will test their friendship.

I found the first half of the novel really slow, only just picking up when the conflicts get bigger. By then, I couldn’t put it down, as I was gripped by what’s happening to the main characters. However, I found the ending to be very abrupt, leaving me wanting more.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read. I especially liked the character of Rosalie.

This is the story of four very different women and their friendship across the years. Their time together has seen them through the many ups and downs of grief, children, marriage and working together in the music industry.
This time though, a mistake by one of the four, Andrea, has the potential to change everything.
I liked the different point of view narrative from each chapter, and felt that this started to give an insight to each of the women and the effect of the relationship on them. By the end, I felt we had started to see the real side of each character.

Can four women who have been friends since childhood maintain that friendship when events threaten to tear their relationship apart? Times Like These asks that question.

Andrea, Hannah, Rosalie and Sophia have been friends for what seems like forever. United not only by their close ties but also by the music business, they have worked and played together for years. Andrea is a successful executive but she has ceded hands on music production to her sister Sofia. While Andrea professes to want a husband, she has definitely been “looking or love in all the wrong places.” Sofia is a music producer but is held back by her husband Jay. Rosalie is a financial wizard and a talented designer but she wants to her producer father to give her a record label of her own. Hannah dropped out of college to marry Rod and have their first child. They now have three and although Hannah is totally responsible for her home life and childcare, she has returned to a demanding job as Andrea’s assistant. All of this is background. The story is driven by a mistake that Andrea makes that will affect all the other women. The relationship she chooses and the repercussions from it nearly destroys their friendship forever.

I loved Times Like These. Each character has her own story and Laura Carter weaves those stories together skillfully. The music background is a fascinating extra in this super readable drama. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Canelo and Laura Carter for this ARC.

It's the story of four different yet close friends, almost like sisters. They are each at different points in their lives both professionally and personally, and the book does a good job of getting into each character's mindset. Each chapter is about a different girl and all are very descriptive in its language. There's quite a bit of British slang/terms, which sure makes sense considering the author and publisher, however, the characters are American, which makes it confusing and out of place. Other than that, I couldn't stop reading once I was in the depths of it: each character, sure has problems, but it's vulnerable and emotional seeing this bond between the girls and the enduring power of friendship.

Such a great story about how friendship can be taken for granted, and that forgetting the importance can have such a massive impact! Really enjoyed it, found it massively emotional and so true to life at times.

Despite how interconnected Andrea, Sofia, Hannah and Rosalie are, at times it seemed like they didn't know each other at all. Andrea hid behind a facade of steely determination whereas it was blatantly apparent of whom she was having an affair with and why she was ill. Sofia and Hannah presented a front that family life was all well and good whereas they were frantically pedalling below the surface. Rosalie championed perfection and frivolity whereas she was just desperately lonely. I was glad that by the end they actually became vulnerable and spoke up for what they wanted and deserved.

I really enjoyed this story- a great look at female friendships and the dynamics behind them, touching on race, parenthood and lots of other important issues. There were points when one of the main characters (Andrea) drove me mad though!

This book follows four women: Sophia, Hannah, Rosalie, & Andrea. Within the first two pages, literally, we are introduced to our four main ladies along with three or four other characters and it got confusing really quickly.

All I know is that Sophia and Andrea are sisters, and Hannah has been best friends with Andrea for her whole life pretty much and then Rosalie gets into the mix somehow. I couldn't really tell you more because I only made it 5% in.

I think that it was just too many characters at once, and they should have been introduced gradually instead of all at once. I had to keep asking myself who was related to who, who was dating who, and if I needed to draw out a Genogram or something.

I mean, this book might get better. I don't really know and I couldn't honestly tell you. I just know that the first three chapters made me realize that this book was indeed not for me.

You can't like them all right?

Thank You to NetGalley and Canelo for this ARC!!

Andrea left her home run music record business for two reasons, one to allow her sister, Sophia, to run the business without any interference and two, to become an executive at one of the largest music production companies, but her love life is a mess.

Sophia, on the other hand, is struggling both with the business and an alcohol addict husband.

Hannah is returning to work as Andrea’s PA after maternity leave. But balancing her job, kids and a lazy but loving, husband is proving an impossible task.

Rosalie, is a rich daddy's girl. In spite of her smart investments and self made wealth, her life is lonely and all wants is to be taken seriously and do something meaningful in life.

These four women have been best friends for a number of years. But as revelations and jealousies come to light, these friends struggle to figure out how they fit in each other's lives – and if their friendship is strong enough to survive their changing worlds.

This book was filled with drama, with each woman having a story of her own. It deals with how sometimes the decisions we make affect the relationships we value the most.

Overall an okay read!!

Three friends and an obligatory little sister have lives that are interwoven in an almost incestuous manner. People who work together, sisters who did work together but are now split apart because of a dodgy husband, people who hustle their way into a business they have no experience, expertise nor right to be in…. the storylines feel trite and done before. There is the woman exec who has pushed away other people in her desire to get to the top, the little sister trying to prove herself after the older sister leaves her in the lurch, the overwhelmed woman who wants it all; home, family and sparking career and the spoilt little rich girl who is actually talented but has never been challenged to be anything but a social butterfly. There is only one real twist that comes early in the book that was a surprise, but all the storylines felt all too familiar and not a little dull.

The four women have been besties for a number of years, but as happens all too often in life, people start to drift apart and have to decide if the friendship is worth saving or if they should consider letting go and moving on. Hannah is the wife and mother who works as a PA for her music executive friend Andrea. She is constantly exhausted trying to be all things to all people with far too much responsibility and an inability to demand help from her husband. Andrea has, through family tragedy basically brought up her little sister Sofia and successfully ran an indie record company before leaving her sister to work for a huge publishing group, moving up the corporate ladder, but is it at the expense of personal relationships and the relationships she does have are all bad. Rosalie is a socialite who appears to have nothing better to do than shop for the latest Gucci apparel and lunch, but underneath it all she finds it all very empty, she is lonely as no man will ever stick by her side and she has the attention span of a goldfish, constantly looking for ways to fill her life and make it meaningful. Sofia is the minor character who is desperate to run the family record business despite her sister walking out on her, but she is mired in trouble with a husband who has major behaviour and addiction issues. The lives of the women cross each other in a myriad of ways that lead to deception, heartache, jealousy, betrayal and duplicity, leaving them to wonder if the friendship bonds they have forged are strong enough to overcome the worst of situations.

At no point did the characters ever feel truly relatable, nor did they ever merit taking a true interest in the unfortunate situations they were thrust into or the bad choices they made. The writing doesn’t ever fully express the supposed excitement of the music industry that this story revolves around. Sadly, hackneyed and clichéd were the words that came to mind as the story trudged along to its predictable end. One woman is sleeping with a man that she should seriously know better than, then falls into another sexual relationship because hormones and alcohol take over. Another woman is a martyr; the unpaid waitress and maid of her family and never once does she demand more from two of her three sons (one getting a pass because he is four months old) and her husband who is a waste of oxygen who doesn’t pull his fair share in the relationship responsibilities but that she makes excuses for. Another woman has unrealistic expectations of any man who she goes out with and has the idea that copying her friend’s life choices will lead to fulfilment in her own, although in reality she is actually smart and talented, but has never had to actually do anything other than be a trinket on the arm of a man or be the airhead daughter of a rich couple. And the last woman who is apparently too loyal for her own good and refuses to take advice from family and friends about the relationship she is in, determined to be respected for her choices come hell or high water. Of course, by the end of the book all is worked out in a manner of speaking and life continues to move forward. It all just feels like it been done before.

Perhaps this review is unfair. The book at no time suggests that it is going to change the world via its prose, but it just lacked that certain something that makes a book sparkle and a good summer read.

This is a story about 4 friends all having different lives and wanting different things. It was uplifting and warming and there were some pretty important messages in there as each character went through their own story. There was a bit of everything in here, scandal, friend drama, home truths, hope and love.

I personally felt that the story took a bit too long to get going for me and it took a while to work out what was going on and the direction of the story, hence why I took a star off but once I was into the story I was really eager to see how it ended.

This is quite a strong addition to the women's fiction genre and I feel it will empower women to follow their dreams.

Thank you to Laura Carter, netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this great story.