Review: The Cancer Ladies' Running Club

The Cancer Ladies' Running Club by Josie Lloyd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Keira pretty much has it all: a happy marriage to Ian, a solicitor; three children; joint owner of a family store selling high end gifts; and owner of a beloved, if flatulent, family dog.

Then a cancer diagnosis changes everything, suddenly things at work are looking rocky and Keira's partner Lorna and her husband Pierre seem to be undermining Keira, added to which Keira's favourite employee Moira has taken a month's leave of absence without warning.

Ian's work is stressful, he's trying for promotion, and his new assistant is a glamorous young woman with whom he has giggly late night calls and works late into the evenings and weekends. Added to which Ian's parents are becoming increasingly infirm.

Feel Keira's frustration when fellow mums at the schoolgate arrange a rota to bring the family meals, at a time when Keira feels perfectly capable of making her own meals, other children refuse to touch her because they think cancer is catching, and her own business partner seems to think a cancer diagnosis means Keira is incapable of making decisions or even lifting boxes.

The one shining light in this dark time is a woman Keira randomly meets while sitting outside the oncology clinic waiting for her diagnosis. At first Keira is judgemental about Tamsin with her heavy make-up and tattoos but when she treats cancer as no big deal and offers to run with Keira once a week the Cancer Ladies Running Club is born. Soon there are four women, all in different stages of cancer treatment, meeting once a week in the only place where everyone knows what you are going through.

However, all that maybe makes this sound a bit worthy, a bit heavy going, and it really isn't. This is just as much women's fiction (I think what I am trying to say is that you could remove Keira's cancer diagnosis from the book and it would still work as a novel), the everyday ins-and-outs of marriage with children and competing careers and elderly parents.

I have to say I thought the plot line with Keira's business partner rang a false note, it was too cartoon villainish. Also, as a forensic accountant I can assure you that we don't do covert copying of computers, we use digital forensic specialists for that, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales does not provide that sort of training. But that is a minor niggle.

Overall, this is a book about the power of friendship, how a random act of kindness can have huge consequences and that life doesn't miraculously become perfect just because you have cancer, kids still argue, parents are still difficult, dogs still need walking and the house still needs cleaning.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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