Anya Mackie, a homebody Glaswegian, is dumped by her okay boyfriend and has to quickly move in with her well-to-do but unfriendly cousin. She has a work melt-down, which forces her to seek temporary employment as a nanny to the unpleasant children of an Instagram influencer. She finds an old letter from her teenage sweetheart and decides to track him down, while simultaneously starting an Instagram-based catering company based on her amateur love of cooking. This is where Anya meets Jamie, a forgotten friend of her teenage crush, and they decide to track him down together.

The book had a lot of potential with the plot, and although farfetched - what romcom isn't, really? I enjoyed the duo working together to find Euan, but did find the fact that Jamie kept his true intentions secret for so long would have been a deal-breaker for a rational person. As well fleshed out as they were, the other characters were mostly there to cheer on Anya, so felt a bit flat.

A cute, easy read.

I enjoyed this title and particularly the unexpected twists and turns in the story. A feel-good read that will make everyone realise that a bit of bad luck can also be a blessing!

This is my second Pheobe Luckhurst book. While the first I read didn’t hit all the right spots, this book definitely did. I really enjoyed the story telling and couldn’t put it down in the end. This goes to show you can change your mind about an author.

Anya is just a bloody brilliant character. I became invested in her story quite quickly and had no regrets in devouring this in just one sitting.

I adored Phoebe’s debut but this book is even better. This is definitely my new favourite by this author. I wish I could experience this as a first read all over again.

You cannot help but feel for Anya in the beginning. It starts off pretty tragic for her, I’ve wanted to give her a massive cwtch and tell her it can only get better.

Luckhurst has completely captivated me with this one. I have adored everything about this magnificent book. The characters are brilliant, the descriptions are so clear you can almost taste the foods and know the settings.

The way this is written, you feel as though you are watching it play out in front of you. Everything is so familiar and this is a huge talent of this author.

This book is an adventure and it’s one i’d happily repeat. This is a must read and a definite to add to your TBR.

I think this book has a good premise and it definitely had potential but sometimes certain things that Phoebe Luckhurst writes aren’t for me. I couldn’t really get behind the characters, I don’t think this book was bad by any means just wasn’t really for me. I think after reading The Lock In I should’ve realised that. Again I don’t think anything was explicitly wrong with the book, it just wasn’t my style. I had to dnf.

This book started off really well but it got a bit slow in the middle and I almost gave up but it comes back to life and has an interesting ending. I wasn't glued to it but its an OK read

The Back Up Man by Phoebe Luckhurst

At 29 years old Anya Mackie is falling apart! She is suddenly single jobless and homeless in a week. She finds herself in a nightmare house share . Having hated her old job Anya did a food blog for fun and her younger sister and best friend encourage her to do this as a serious job as well as cook. Follow Anya’s journey from devastation to success her disasters humour and will she/won’t she find romance .

This book is a bit of a slow starter but full of laugh out loud moments ,where you want to cry and some of the storylines are so true to life you can imagine yourself in the situation and I really adored the characters. It also keeps you engrossed to the very last page .a very enjoyable read though a bit of a slow burn do stick with it.

29 year old Anya's life has been turned on its head, Longterm partner has broken up with her, she's moved in with her boring cousin and creepy husband, she's let loose at her boss and lost her job - and her best friend lives in Canada not Glasgow...
All the classic ingredients for a life upheaval - and when Anya remembers a childhood pledge to get together with Euan if all else failed, what else could she do?
The Back up Man has some great characters and some nice moments, though Ive probably read a few too many books where people want to be chefs and cooks - I cant think of anything worse personally!
I wasnt desperate to go back to the book and see what happened next, Im probably the wrong audience for the book - but some decent storylines all in all

It was a bit slow at times but still interesting and you want to keep reading it to find out does the back up man still remember the pact

I found this a bit of a slog to get into, there was a lot of characters to get to know & overall it was chaotic. I found myself skim reading towards the end. Really sorry it was not for me.

This story was an okay read, I enjoyed the dialogue between the two main characters but I would have loved more romance earlier and to also have a bit more structure and fluency to the story. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it!

I was enticed into our heroine Anya’s world for two main reasons: Glasgow is one of my favourite cities and I too had a back up man, for when I hit the age of 40. My best friend Elliot and I made a pact when we were moving on from sixth form. He didn’t know that I was head over heels in love with him, but he was my best friend and I didn’t want to ruin anything (we did ruin things a few years later, after university, but that’s another story). So we decided that if both of us were single at the age of 40, we’d get married. Life takes strange turns and although we were still in touch, Elliot had a long term partner and three children by then and I was a widow. We’ve all had a break up or other difficult life event and been overcome with a bout of nostalgia. Sometimes what has happened to us has been so scary and life changing, it makes more sense to lapse into the past, revisiting times and people who feel safe. We’re always doing this through rose tinted spectacles forgetting the negative aspects of the relationship or memory. So I could really understand Anya’s reasoning, especially after the shock she gets on a visit to Sunday lunch at her boyfriend’s mother’s home. In fact it’s on their way home, as they drop into a Shell garage, where Callum ends their four year relationship. Because he hadn’t wanted to upset his mum by doing it sooner. So Anya is facing a massive life change, because they live together in Callum’s flat and while he can find somewhere to stay for a few days until she gets herself together, he will want her to move out by the end of the week. What else can go wrong?

Glasgow’s west end is a beautiful setting, giving both atmosphere and warmth to the story. I love the beautiful Victorian stone homes in the area and I have imagined myself living in one of them, but they’re pricey and only for the city’s professional classes. People like Anya’s cousin Claire. It’s her sister Georgie who suggests that Claire might want a lodger. Georgie gets on better with Claire than Anya does, because Anya finds her a bit stuck up and joyless. She also dislikes her creepy partner Richard. So once her best friend Paddy has helped her move to a single mattress in Claire’s back bedroom, Anya lies there wondering if life could get any worse? Then the next day she loses her job. As she’s going through her badly packed boxes she finds her old year book from school and a note from Euan. In her final year of school, Euan and Anya had a casual connection that could perhaps have become something more had he not been going away to university. They were never officially together, so they didn’t really break up, but they did make a pact. If they are both single when they are thirty years old they will make a go of it together. In a wave of nostalgia, borne out of feeling her life has fallen apart, Anya starts to search for Euan when she’s surprised by a message from a mutual friend. Jamie has also been looking for Euan, maybe they could join forces?

For me, this romcom worked because it is so much more than a simple boy meets girl. This period of time is transformative for Anya in so many different ways. She learns so much about herself and for me that is the most interesting part of the story. She and sister Georgie live in Glasgow with their parents living out in a suburb of the city. Anya and her mother have a spiky relationship because she has very set ideas about how life should be. Anya’s favourite pastime is cooking, in fact she finds that in the week where she’s alone in Callum’s flat, the night she cooks from scratch is when she feels most relaxed. For a little while she’s been running a page on Instagram called anyaeatstoomuch and her friend Paddy suggests that she could develop this hobby into a business. So she starts to look into turning it into a catering company, but in the meantime her mum isn’t going to let her sit around feeling sorry for herself. She finds her a job looking after the granddaughters of a woman she knows, their mother is working as a beauty influencer. These terrible twins are brilliant comic relief, being both unruly and sneaky, but subdued by Anya’s incredible food. It could be a complete waste of her time, or it could provide opportunities.

Meeting Jamie and chasing Euan’s whereabouts almost legitimises what Anya has been doing when everyone else thinks she’s acting like a crazy person. I kept wondering what his motivation was, why does he need to find Euan so badly? There’s also the mystery of what’s going on with Claire’s other half Richard, with his furtive phone calls and lurking round corners. I felt there was so much that Anya had to learn about herself and others. She’s had a habit of thinking some people are lucky to live where they do and have a certain lifestyle, when it hasn’t happened by accident. She also learns that there are some people and situations that she’s got completely wrong; just because someone’s life looks perfect on Instagram, doesn’t mean it is. I could see so much potential in her and so many possibilities for her future, that I wanted her to stop looking back and start looking forward into the life she could carve out for herself. Anya needs to fall in love, with her talent and her own exciting new life.

I’m sorry to say that this book just wasn’t for me on this occasion. Mainly because I felt like it was slow to start and then once all the action happened it ended and we didn’t really get a resolution on certain aspects. It would have been good to know how Anya’s plans had worked out.

This unfortunately just didn’t work for me, I really struggled that the lead male love interest wasn’t introduced until at least 30% and then it took till 70% for any real romance. I felt the story just didn’t have a great structure or flow. Love the Glasgow setting though!

A book easily devoured.
Very well written and easy to get into. I found this novel very compelling and the story line well paced.

Seeing how the main character Anya copes when everything in her life doesn’t seem to be turning out well was interesting. I wished the ending showed what would happen with her new found love for her own little business. So perhaps a second novel to this would happen?

The characters where very well developed and realistic and I didn’t want it to end. Especially given the slow-burn romance between her and another. As well as seeing the friendships developed.

Thanks to the publishers for sending me this in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Loved this book by Phoebe , so much so that I bought The Lock In by her immediately I’d finished The Back Up Man. Great storyline, and storytelling , fabulous characters and I absolutely recommend it.

An absolutely wonderful, light-hearted read!

I really enjoyed this book and flew through it in 2 days. The writing is so easy to get along with and I felt such a connection to all of the characters within.

I had so many guesses in my head as to what would happen toward the end but was surprised and it was not at all what I expected which of course made it that much more enjoyable.

If you're in need for something quick and cheerful then this is perfect for you!

This was an enjoyable easy read. I loved reading about Anya, Georgie and Paddy's friendship, and I enjoyed watching the romance develop throughout. I would definitely read more from this author in future.

This book was adorable! The characters were so loveable, the book was well written and it was an overall enjoyable read

I loved it, I thought there was plenty of plot to keep me interested, the characters were engaging and I would recommend this book to a friend! And I would pick another book by this author.