Tuesday 1 March 2016

Book ~ "The Flood" (2016) Steven Scaffardi

From Goodreads ~ One bet, four girls, eight weeks, multiple dates. What could possibly go wrong?

Following his traumatic eight month dry spell, Dan Hilles is back in the driving seat and ready to put his dating disasters behind him.

But if only it were that simple.

After a drunken afternoon in the pub, fuelled by the confidence of alcohol, Dan makes a bet with his three best pals that will complicate his lovelife more than ever when he brazenly declares that he could juggle multiple women all at the same time.

With just eight weeks to prove his point, Dan is about to find out how hard it is to date a flood of women without them all finding out about each other, especially when they come in the shape of an ex-girlfriend, a stalker, the office ice queen and the one that got away.

Dan is not a serial dater.  It's all he can do to date one woman at a time.  But during a bout of drinking, he boasts to his best friends, Rob, Jack and Ollie, that he can date four woman in eight weeks.  His friends take him up on the bet and now he just has to find four women who will actually go out with him.

He ends up dating a "flood" of women ... a stalker with a psycho ex-boyfriend, his ex-girlfriend, a co-worker who doesn't give him the time of day until she thinks he's a "bad boy" and "the one who got away".  His best friend, Kelly, who he usually turns to for advice about women, is spending a year travelling.

In addition to trying to win the bet, Dan becomes even more stressed out trying to keep the four women from finding out about each other.  In the meantime, he is sharing an apartment with a strange guy named Tuna who doesn't seem to have a job and is intent on getting a dog.

I enjoyed this book and liked the humorous writing style.  This is lad-lit (chick-lit for men) so it was interesting reading from a male perspective.  It's written in first person perspective from Dan's point of view.  The story is based in London and the author is English.  As such, there are phrases and expressions that are specific to being English that I wasn't familiar with so they lost their meaning for me.  The language and activities are for a mature reader.

Though it is the follow-up to The Drought (which was hilarious), this works as a stand alone as there is enough background from that book provided.  The end of the book provides a tease of a third book to come with Dan, Rob, Jack and Ollie.

I received a copy of this ebook from the author in return for my honest opinion.

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