Having read Meeting Lydia and The Man in the Needlecord Jacket, I was keen to go back and read the middle two books of this linked series. Don't worry if you read them out of order, like me, as they work perfectly fine as standalone books, although it is nice to follow the story from beginning to end.

In A Meeting of a Different Kind, we return to Edward and Marianne, who met up again in Meeting Lydia after many years when Marianne tracked Edward down on Friends Reunited. Edward's wife, Felicity, is having what might be termed a mid-life crisis. Her mother has recently passed away and left her a huge amount of money which Felicity is determined to use to fulfil her lifelong dream of owning a restaurant. This leaves Edward rather sidelined and his growing friendship with Marianne becomes more central to his life. But Marianne's friend, Taryn, something of a man-eater, decides that she wants a bit of Edward for herself.

This is a story of relationships and the psychology behind them, something that Linda MacDonald really excels at. It's all about feelings, the way that what other people say and do can be so crucial to how you feel about yourself and your life.

As with Meeting Lydia, I liked Edward very much and Marianne too. Taryn was a little harder to like although things do turnaround where she's concerned, and Felicity is a fairly sketchy character in that she's busy 'doing' in the background of Edward's life.

I enjoyed this book, more than Meeting Lydia which I found very philosophical in tone. A Meeting of a Different Kind seems a little less like that somehow but just as thought-provoking. Like all of MacDonald's books, it's very much character-driven but with an engaging story too. ( )