This is quite a long book, divided into 3 parts – named after people significant in Janice’s life.
There are 5 people significant in Janice’s life throughout the story – Kobus (part 1), Hannah (part 2), Kate (part 3), Ariel (mentioned throughout) and Colin (in part 2 and 3). They all have a part in making Janice. It is set in the 1980s.

Janice arrives in London from New Zealand with dreams of seeing a lot of West End productions. She meets Kobus – her landlady’s nephew and fellow lodger and struggles to manage her relationship with him. Following an accident she leaves London.
Arriving in Amsterdam she meets Colin, a gay Scot, and Hannah, the training manager at the job that her and Colin find together. She has a brief and as far as Janice is concerned disastrous relationship with Hannah, joining Hannah’s theatre company but does not gain a part in their next production. She does however make some new friends, one of which is Kate.
Kate befriends Janice and they have a relationship. Kate’s neighbour just so happens to be Janice’s London landlady’s sister (and mother of Kobus).
Everything is entwined and connected together. Kate feels it is her duty to help Kobus when he affected by his mother’s death.

Colin is living his life as he wants to and has sex with multiple men – enjoying life. This is set in the early 80s. Is it an accurate retelling of life as a gay man in the 1980s when he becomes ill – or is it a stereotypical story of the gay man sleeping his way across Europe returning home ill as the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit the news? Personally I think it is a sympathetic telling of Colin’s story.

It is a fitting end of the story for Janice to leave Amsterdam to visit Colin.

There is much to think about and enjoy in this story. It is quite long but I enjoy a book that tells a story other than a romance. Although Janice has several ‘romances’ here – it is not the story. Janice herself and how she negotiates her life is. Ariel is mentioned several times – perhaps Janice is manoeuvring through life to come to terms with the pain of losing Ariel as much as she is trying to find herself.

I enjoyed this. It is unconventional.