Review: Girl Before a Mirror by Liza Palmer

Girl Before a Mirror by Liza Palmer

Published: January 27, 2015

Format: copy via Edelweiss

Challenge: 2015 NetGalley/Edelweiss

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Goodreads / Amazon

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

An account executive in a Mad Men world, Anna Wyatt is at a crossroads. Recently divorced, she’s done a lot of emotional housecleaning, including a self-imposed dating sabbatical. But now that she’s turned forty, she’s struggling to figure out what her life needs. Brainstorming to win over an important new client, she discovers a self-help book—Be the Heroine, Find Your Hero—that offers her unexpected insights and leads her to a most unlikely place: a romance writers’ conference. If she can sign the Romance Cover Model of the Year Pageant winner for her campaign—and meet the author who has inspired her to take control of her life—she’ll win the account.

For Anna, taking control means taking chances, including getting to know Sasha, her pretty young colleague on the project, and indulging in a steamy elevator ride with Lincoln Mallory, a dashing financial consultant she meets in the hotel. When the conference ends, Anna and Lincoln must decide if their intense connection is strong enough to survive outside the romantic fantasy they’ve created. Yet Lincoln is only one of Anna’s dilemmas. Now that her campaign is off the ground, others in the office want to steal her success, and her alcoholic brother, Ferdie, is spiraling out of control.

To have the life she wants-to be happy without guilt, to be accepted for herself, to love and to be loved, to just be—she has to put herself first, accept her imperfections, embrace her passions, and finally be the heroine of her own story.

My Thoughts

This is my second Liza Palmer experience all I can say is it just gets better every time. Anna is my new favorite character I loved that she is flawed and in a sense a mess right now in her life. She is divorced and trudging her way through life. She is focusing mainly on her career right now trying to make a niche for herself in the man’s world of advertising. While she is focused on her work she is pushing her personal life on the back burner until she goes on a work trip and meets the mysterious Lincoln. Thinking she will let loose this one time she has a good time with him while she is there thinking nothing will happen after that. However Anna isn’t that type of girl she’s always thinking ahead and never really living in the now. I think that is why I so identified with Anna so much because I’m the same way. I love all or nothing. My problem has always that I can’t just live in the now I’m always thinking 20 steps ahead which has always been my downfall.

The other thing I loved was the surprise friendship between Anna and her new coworker Sasha. Two people who don’t really have much in common on the surface but who indeed have way more in common than they even know. I love when there is a solid female friendship because sometimes in life we don’t see that. There tends to be this “mean girls” mentality at times and I for one don’t understand why we can’t support each other instead of tearing each other down. Liza Palmer is a wonderful writer whose characters are always off or imperfect but that’s why I love and gravitate towards them. I love real life people rather than that perfect story book type, that’s what I connect with I like to see myself in them. I highly encourage everyone to read this book it’s funny, it has characters you will definitely relate to plus a little romance thrown in for good measure.