“It was always like that. They never said sorry. They just threw down their still-loaded weapons, ready for next time.” 

Cat, Gemma and Lyn are triplets and best friends (or mortal enemies, depending on the day). Lyn is a wildly successful entrepreneur who has a penchant for micro-managing her, and her sisters’, life. Gemma is a free spirit who has some serious commitment issues after the way her last relationship ended. Cat wants nothing more than to start a family — but her husband has other plans. And they just turned 33.

Their thirty-third year brings quite a bit of drama into their individual and collective lives, beginning with a revelation from Cat’s husband, Dan. (not-so-spoiler alert: he’s cheating). As Cat tries to grapple with the fact Dan has thrown a wrench in her family plan, Gemma has to try to downplay the pleasure she gets from her newest boyfriend, Charlie. As chick-lit is wont to do, a string of coincidences brings underlying tensions to the surface during what turns out to be a rather eventful (and messy) Christmas celebration. While Cat and Gemma hash out their differences over the next few months, Lyn tries to reign in her surprise parking-lot-induced panic attacks and the women’s parents, divorced since the kids were 6 years old, decide that maybe they don’t want to be so divorced any more.

Three Wishes was a lighthearted departure from my usual murder mystery and I enjoyed the heck out of it. It was fun and flirty and flippant and just a good ole time. There weren’t any characters that I didn’t care for, but some of Cat’s inner turmoil got a little tedious in places — but that’s life, isn’t it? Charlie was precious (especially at the end — heart-eye emoji), Dan was a total asshole (especially at the end — eye-roll emoji) Cat’s former flame was the worst of all. But, as Cat would say, he got what was coming for him, eh?

My favorite scene: The book opens with Lyn, Cat and Gemma at dinner to celebrate their 34th birthday at a classy seafood joint. Instead of being told what happened, the reader is taken on a bit of a “telephone” ride (remember that game? where you passed a single sentence around the circle and what came out at the end was not at all the sentence the game started with?) and as the narrator says, “Of course, no two [stories] were the same.” The sisters are having having a grand ole time until they’re suddenly not. They start fighting and one sister ends up with a fondue fork stabbed into her pregnant belly, one faints to the floor and the other is left to clean up the mess. The story of what started the fight is eventually retold within the context of the narrative, but I love that the story started with some serious drama and gossip. Because who doesn’t love a good goss session?

Grade: ★★★★☆

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