Please note that I gave this book 3.5 stars and rounded it up to 4 stars on Goodreads.

I read two Mansell books back in the day and told myself that maybe those two books should be enough. Both a lot of her works were available via my library and I decided to try again to see if I like any of these books much better. The answer is, I did and I didn’t. What grabs me a lot about this book is that I loved every character in this book except for the main character Lola. Lola is annoying and if she had been a man everyone would have been yelling at her that her nice guy act to her ex demanding another chance was out of bounds. I hate it when female characters do things we would give male characters crap for. Readers know right away (and the synopsis spoils you) that Lola takes money from her boyfriend’s mother when she is forced to. As part of the money exchange she dumps Doug and then in my opinion was doing great in her life until she comes face to face with Dougie again and decides she must have him because everyone knows your teen love is your forever love. And yes sometimes you are, but since I saw no chemistry at all between Lola and Dougie I felt a bit baffled by these two characters.

If that’s not enough, the story switches POV many times with Lola’s long time friend and next door neighbor, Dougie’s sister, as well as Lola’s mom and someone from Lola’s mom past. I recall not being in love with the parade of characters in other books, and this one had almost too many, but somehow everything works.

We get some secondary characters here and there, like Dougie’s mother who must be evil incarnate based on everything we are shown. I wish that we had a face to face with her and Lola ever, but instead that whole thing was just Lola asking to be forgiven and wanting to move on from the whole thing.

The writing to me was typical British chick lit which I loved. There were a few laugh out loud moments I had too. Mainly when we have Lola who is a bookstore manager dealing with customers thinking she should know everything about books. Her figuring out what books people are looking for would have been a nice recurring gag. I maybe snickered when another customer is bereft that his wife’s favorite author, Jane Austen has died. And yup, he thinks she died recently.

The flow was off though in this one. I think it’s because Lola’s best friend across the way and then his situation with a live in roommate felt like they were in two different books. They really took up a good portion of the book (not complaining) because maybe even Mansell got tired of Lola and her antics.

The ending for everyone else worked perfectly, but I thought Lola’s happy ending came out of nowhere. I wish that Mansell had went another way there with another love for Lola to think about or get involved with, since her being stuck on Dougie through the whole book after she lays eyes on him made me start calling her Ted (in honor of Ted Mobsy from How I Met Your Mother). ( )

"An Offer You Can't Refuse" by Jill Mansell started off with an interesting idea for a plot, but sadly failed for me on many fronts.
Lola and Dougie who are young lovers in Ireland with plans of a lifetime together are separated by Dougie's snobby inetrfering mother who offers Lola a large sum of money to end the relationship as she feels Lola is not good enough for her son. Lola initially refuses, but is forced to accept the offer after discovering a dire financial problem within her own family.
Move on 10 years and Lola now has a successful career in London and perchance meets up with Dougie, who of course wants nothing to do with her. Lola is once again besotted and is hoping to rekindle their romance.
I just could not connect with the characters. Lola particularly had not matured in the intervening years, and hers and Sally's (Dougie's older sister) inane musing were immature and annoying. The whole paparazzi side story with Gabe was far fetched as well as the immediate connection with Lola's dad.
I just think the premise of the story deserved something better. ( )

I can always count on funny, likable characters and a happy ever after ending with a novel by Ms. Mansell. Lola is impetus, a little overbearing at times, but ultimately a nice girl - and in the author's world, nice girls finish first in the end... ( )

I am a big Jill Mansell fan, but this one was just off to me.

Lola and Dougie are in "young love." Dougie's wealthy mom tries to buy Lola off. Lola steadfastly refuses...for about 12 hours.
She finds out the family needs money, she sacrifices her happily ever after and takes the money, buys the family out of the problem and moves abroad.

This is one of my least favorite tropes, so that was kind of an initial downer for me. I will say Ms. Mansell handled the setup very nicely and succinctly. There was not a lot of dragging on and woe is me-ing.

I did feel that there was not enough interaction between Lola and Dougie to make for a believable HEA (and yeah, he drops the "Dougie" and becomes "Doug"). And that was one of the problems I had with the book. Lola seemed to not mature in the intervening years between when she accepted the offer and when she got back in the same world as Doug. Even though she gets a grown-up job, she buys her own apartment and pays her own way in the world (with the help of a convenient "gift"), she still acts in a way that feels immature for supposedly mature woman of 27.

What I do love about the Mansell books was ever present. There are lots of strong secondary characters, just great people you get to know and like and wish you could hang out with.

Ms. Mansell seems to always have a "celebrity" in the mix and there were a couple of really interesting "celebrities." She always seems to have a little twist that makes it fun (it is of course totally ridiculous, but you would miss it if she didn't add them).

There is a twist on the baby daddy trope. This addition to the plot made for some nice scenes and interactions of all ages.

More chick lit than romance. The romance(s) in the books for the most part seemed to just formulaically happen by a certain time in the book. But again, that's part of what you love about these books. ( )

I am a big Jill Mansell fan, but this one was just off to me.

Lola and Dougie are in "young love." Dougie's wealthy mom tries to buy Lola off. Lola steadfastly refuses...for about 12 hours.
She finds out the family needs money, she sacrifices her happily ever after and takes the money, buys the family out of the problem and moves abroad.

This is one of my least favorite tropes, so that was kind of an initial downer for me. I will say Ms. Mansell handled the setup very nicely and succinctly. There was not a lot of dragging on and woe is me-ing.

I did feel that there was not enough interaction between Lola and Dougie to make for a believable HEA (and yeah, he drops the "Dougie" and becomes "Doug"). And that was one of the problems I had with the book. Lola seemed to not mature in the intervening years between when she accepted the offer and when she got back in the same world as Doug. Even though she gets a grown-up job, she buys her own apartment and pays her own way in the world (with the help of a convenient "gift"), she still acts in a way that feels immature for supposedly mature woman of 27.

What I do love about the Mansell books was ever present. There are lots of strong secondary characters, just great people you get to know and like and wish you could hang out with.

Ms. Mansell seems to always have a "celebrity" in the mix and there were a couple of really interesting "celebrities." She always seems to have a little twist that makes it fun (it is of course totally ridiculous, but you would miss it if she didn't add them).

There is a twist on the baby daddy trope. This addition to the plot made for some nice scenes and interactions of all ages.

More chick lit than romance. The romance(s) in the books for the most part seemed to just formulaically happen by a certain time in the book. But again, that's part of what you love about these books. ( )