Jill Mansell ranks amongst the top 20 British female novelists of the 21st century, with 27 titles — of which several have been bestsellers — to her name. Her latest offering, You and Me, Always, is an endearing and calm love story that encompasses the beauty of relationships of ordinary folks within a small, close-knit community.

With so much women-centric literature and romantic comedy being written, it is quite a challenge for readers to find a story that narrates newness of plot and characters. Moreover, novel writers often succumb to the temptation of ‘exceptionalising’ their protagonists: they are either very rich or extremely beautiful, smart or talented. Mansell, in You and Me, Always has painstakingly ensured that her characters are as normal and ordinary as possible. However, what happens to them along the way requires an extraordinary stretch of imagination. A chance meeting with a superstar film actor on the street is one thing; finding them hiding in a friend’s house is quite another.

While the novel begins in a vein similar to the film Notting Hill where a Hollywood star falls in love with an ordinary man after a chance encounter, it ends very differently. The relationship established between the two protagonists goes beyond the usual romantic plot and Eddie holds Lily’s hand through the nervous journey of finding and getting to know her mother’s old boyfriend whom she had so ardently loved.

Jill Mansell’s latest novel, with its warm and identifiable characters, is an enjoyable read

Lily is the darling of Stanton Langley, a small chocolate-box Cotswolds village and works in a reclamation yard owned and run by her deceased mother’s friend, Carol. “Everyone loved and was protective of her following the tragic loss of her mum. The saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ had turned out to contain more than a kernel of truth in Lily’s case.”

Lily looks forward to her birthdays most anxiously, as her mother Jo, who passed away when she was eight, left her a letter to open on each birthday. The story commences with Lily opening the last of them at age 25; in it Jo has confided about her ex-boyfriend, her “first … and only love”, a man called Declan Maddison. The letter also contains a silver bangle; her mother’s most prized possession that had been given to her by Declan on her 19th birthday. “… [I]t mightn’t have cost a lot, but it’s my most precious and treasured possession,” reads the letter.

Intrigued by the idea of her mother’s deep love for Declan, as opposed to her father who abandoned her mother when she was expecting her, Lily is anxious to get in touch with him. “So I can let him know about Mum leaving me the bracelet he gave her. And tell him how much he meant to her … and then he can tell me things about her that I haven’t heard before,” she reasons. Fortunately for Lily, De­­clan’s unusual name makes it quite easy for her to look him up on the internet.

“A dazzle of flashbulbs went off and she blinked, then blinked again as Eddie intertwined his fingers with hers. The photographers were calling out his name, even as a female organiser with a clipboard was shepherding them towards the press pen. ‘You wait here with me for a minute,’ the organiser murmured, resting her hand on Lily’s forearm. ‘Let them get their shots of Eddie.’ Eddie had to stand in front of a giant backdrop featuring logos of the film and various companies advertising the event. He was wearing a gorgeously cut dark blue suit and cream shirt, and his hair was slicked back from his tanned face.” — Excerpt from the book

On the same day, Lily runs into A-list actor, Eddie Tessler, when she sneaks into her friends and neighbours, Dan and Patsy’s, house to run an errand for Dan. Following a controversy, Eddie’s manager gets him to hide from the paparazzi in Patsy’s house through a common connection of theirs. Within days of their chance encounter, Eddie charms Lily as he discovers he is attracted to her matter-of-fact personality, unlike the hordes of star-struck screaming fans he routinely encounters.

Lily is unable to resist Eddie’s advances and eventually succumbs to a relationship with him, despite her head constantly telling her that she has no place in a very famous actor’s life. Eddie’s sincere interest in helping Lily find Declan further brings them together.

Also in the picture is Dan, Lily’s childhood friend who watches Eddie’s and Lily’s affections grow while hiding his own emotions towards her. “I love her, I just really and truly love her. And the thing is, I love her too much to risk ever doing anything about it.” Lily, on the other hand, is also very fond of Dan, but her apprehensions haven’t allowed her to express herself to him.

Surprisingly, Declan re­­sponds positively to Lily’s letter and is very enthusiastic towards developing a relationship with Lily, himself having very fond memories of her mother. After initially paying her frequent visits, he eventually goes on to not only buy a property in Stanton Langley, but also becomes romantically involved with Carol. Still struggling to overcome the passing of her beloved husband, Nick, Carol never thinks she can become so fond of another man.

While the plot is somewhat predictable at times, the story is gentle and interesting and manages to hold one’s attention consistently, one reason being that all the secondary characters are eclectic and vibrant and integral to the plot, rather than mere plot-fillers. Each has its own storyline that is taken to its individual climax. Hence, their ordinary lives become extraordinary, so to speak — a feat that can only be accomplished by an author as seasoned as Mansell. She moves swiftly from narrating the inner struggles of one character to the next and they all intertwine beautifully with each other. At no point is any character — all of whom are charming and identifiable, warm and colourful — given a backseat.

This book is an ideal representation of how life doesn’t always remain the same and in time changes in extraordinary ways for ordinary people. While Eddie making a film about his brief relationship with Lily, and Lily getting nationwide coverage for catching a mouse on the red carpet of a film premier may seem a bit far-fetched, extraordinary things can and do happen!

The reviewer is a former Dawn member of staff.

You and Me, Always
(NOVEL)
By Jill Mansell
Headline Review, UK
ISBN: 978-1472208903
368pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 9th, 2016