Twelve Days in May

Lizzy Munro is a half-American, half-Scottish advocate for the Scottish Film Board. The team are at the Cannes Film Festival hoping to lure some big Hollywood director into their marquee and persuade them to shoot their films in Scotland; they don't have the big budget of some of their rivals but Lizzy hopes that the Ceilidh she has planned for the last night will help them stand out. Having her lunch one day, Lizzy is horrified to see hot-shot Irish director Ciaran Flynn in the same café, even more incensed when he totally blanks her when she waves. Their friendship twelve years ago when they were students in France may have ended really badly but there's no need to be rude. Ciaran is riding high, bringing his film about living as a student in Bordeaux to the Cannes Film Festival to premiere at the Palais des Festivals, the most important venue. Then his film company is served with an infringement notice claiming that Ciaran's film Wish You Were Here bears a striking resemblance to a similar screenplay submitted to the film company two years earlier. Now the only hope Ciaran has of refuting the claims is to find someone who could confirm some of the aspects of the film are based on real life - and that someone would be Lizzy. Lizzy doesn't want to help Ciaran, the man who not so much broke her heart as stamped all over it then set light to the remains, but her innate sense of fair play forces her to agree. Watching the film together reminds both Lizzy and Ciaran of their time together, both of them lamenting their relationship and how it ended. This was a sweet and quirky romance about second chances, first love, and how things can appear very different from the other point of view. Perfect holiday reading (if we get one in 2022), light, amusing, charming and with likable characters. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.