A Book Review: I Remember You

I Remember You By Harriet Evans:
The perfect book to curl up with on a long winter's evening. Rich, witty and moving I Remember You is for anyone who likes to dream about a new life -- and for anyone who still remembers their first love. Heartbroken Tess Tennant is leaving London and moving back to her picture-perfect home town to take up a teaching job. It's time for a fresh start, one with warm stone cottages, friendly locals in oak-beamed pubs and of course Adam, her best friend since childhood. But something isn't right in the town: Adam is preoccupied with a new girlfriend and the past is looming large again. So by the time she has to take her class on a trip to Rome, Tess is feeling reckless. Swept off her feet by a mysterious stranger, she finds herself falling in love. But her magical Roman Holiday is about to turn into a nightmare! Back in Langford, as autumn creeps towards Christmas, Adam is gone and everything has changed.Tess has to decide, once and for all, where she belongs and who with.
This is the first title I have ever read by Harriet Evans. It reminded me of Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern which did a much better job of the "best friends fall in love, but both are too scared to say anything until way later in life" story. That being said it was a nice romantic* novel that I think people could relate too. One of the things the author did that I found annoying was that she would introduce a character and tell you something special about them, a personality quirk or something, but then never mention it again because you were suppose to remember the name and the quirk. I couldn't keep them straight. Plus they didn't add that much to the story. I felt that more could have been focused on the two best friends Tess and Adam and their relationship. Which is why you read light romantic novels in the first place. The other thing she did that was annoying was give us back story that the main characters never knew or find out. I don't see why the reader would need to know it if the main characters didn't know it.
If you like best friends turned lover stories this is a book for you! If not I would give it a miss!

*I use the term romantic but not in a Mills Boon romance novel type way.