Book Review: ‘Not Bad People: A Novel’ Looks At The Actions Of Three Women

The debut novel of author Brand Scott is a look at three life long female friends in Australia and the potential consequences of something that they did on New Year’s Eve. A strong story with strong female characters that you root for throughout the novel

Aimee, Melinda and Lou have been friends since childhood. Aimee is married with two kids. Melinda is the owner of a very successful business which she’s about to make public and Lou is a single mom of a sixteen year old girl and has never had it easy. They get together on New Year’s Eve and decide to release sky lanterns with their resolutions to put the bad things in their lives behind them. They release them and one of them blows up causing a fire ball in the sky.

At the same time Pete is flying a small plane with his son Lincoln and the plane ends up crashing and they are both injured and in the hospital. Aimee reads the story the next day in the paper and thinks they may be responsible because of the sky lanterns (which are illegal to use). This sets Aimee off on a path of feeling guilty and trying to figure out what happened to the plane. She tells the other girls and they don’t think it was because of them.

The story takes off from there and we follow the women and Pete in their daily lives and a lot happens with each of them. The story has a lot of twists and turns with all three women and with Pete and his story of what really happened with the plane. When all is said and done it could be the end of the life long friendship of the three women or could bring them together.

You can pick up Not Bad People in stores on Tuesday, May 14th from William Morrow.