Penning down a
book – even a novella – as a part of a multi-author series is quite an
accomplishment to master. Though in all my experience as a reader of
multi-author novels there has never been a time when the personalities of the
overlapping characters have changed in between – to the authors’ absolute
credit – such perfect segueing of the plot-lines as seen in the multi-author
series of the Outback Bachelor Ball series has also been rare for me.
Joan Kilby’s Win Me; Karina Bliss’ Woo Me and Sarah Mayberry’s Wait for Me deals with the life of three
best friends – Ellie McFarlane, Jen Tremaine and Beth Walker respectively, each
of whom who have been left disappointed in the romance department. Best friends
since school days, they are not only each other’s rocks, but each is also no-nonsense
in her ability to call out the other two in case the scenario necessitates it. And
though they are separated by distance, their friendship is rock-solid as ever –
thanks to modern-day communicational technologies.
Individualistic
as the author who created them, each of these female protagonists has a
different take on life and what they want of it. Ellie’s love is steady and unabated
by distance or time, while Jen’s previous experiences have made her out to be
cynical (though I term it to be realistic) yet warily optimistic at the same
time. And then there’s Beth, who’s struggling to cope with the fall-out of her
celebrity-status-by-association, and trying to come out of it anew.
The three friends
catch up with each other, and dare each other to do the one thing each has been
shying away from at the Outback Bachelor and Spinster Ball. The event provides
the perfect backdrop for start of good
things for the three school-friends, with the troika least expecting it.
It’s then with
little bit of cautiousness peppered with some amount of daredevilry that Ellie,
Jen and Beth – along with Clarabelle, who has a major role in fixing up Jen’s cynicism-infused
take on life’s realism – take up on the headiness that life has had to offer
them at the Ball.
The winding-down, amidst the settling down of the dust of the Ball's revelry however isn’t as comfortable as each would have
hoped for, with the past hurts seeming to ricocheting all over again. But it’s
in the face of these demoralising eventualities that the distinctive
assertiveness of Ellie, Jen and Beth comes out making the reader fall in love
with them all over again.
