I don’t think that I got the book I thought I was going to be getting with Rebecca Serle’s novel In Five Years. That’s not the fault of the book.

Dannie Kohan is living her best life as a lawyer in NYC. She has a fabulous apartment, a fabulous boyfriend and a bestie, Bella, who completes the fabulous circle of her life. One morning, after David proposes, she wakes up in a bed that is not hers with a man who is not David. It would seem five years have passed, but Dannie doesn’t remember any of it. When she wakes up, her world seems to have righted itself again.

Then, Bella introduces Dannie to her boyfriend, and it’s the hunky dude from Dannie’s dream. What does it all mean?

It would be a mistake to think that In Five Years is a romance in the traditional sense, and honestly, that’s what I thought I was going to get. Nevertheless, it is a love story.

Bella and I have been best friends since we were seven years old. Me, Nice Jewish Girl from the Main Line of Philadelphia. Her, French-Italian Princess whose parents threw her a thirteenth party big enough to stop any bat mitzvah in its tracks. Bella is spoiled, mercurial, and more than a little bit magical. It’s not just me. Everywhere she goes people fall at her feet. She is the easiest to love, and gives love freely. But she’s fragile, too. A membrane of skin stretches so thinly over her emotions it’s always threatening to burst.

So, these two women love each other and anyone who has a bestie will certainly relate to their friendship. But like any love story, it’s not all smooth sailing. I wish I could say it was as simple as Dannie’s dream and then meeting her dream guy in the flesh. But Serle goes a different route and your appetite for the story she tells will depend on whether or not you have a tolerance for …well, no spoilers.

I liked One Italian Summer better.