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Claudia's Big Break

Lisa Heidke

Why we're reading this: Claudia Taylor's life is a mess. Her twenties and thirties seem to have disappeared in a haze of boring o…more
[close] Claudia Taylor's life is a mess. Her twenties and thirties seem to have disappeared in a haze of boring office jobs, unsuitable shags and superficial spending. Her latest disaster? An ill-advised fling.

In an attempt to get some perspective on her life, Claudia jets off to glorious Santorini with her two best friends, Tara and Sophie. But it's not long before they're shaking their heads at some of Claudia's shenanigans.

Meanwhile, Sophie and Tara are wrestling with their own issues. Sophie, a former high-flying career woman, is struggling with being a stay-at-home mother and her husband's nasty ex-wife. Tara, meanwhile, is sick of her dead-end job and trying to write a novel.

Claudia's Big Break is an hilarious novel about friendship, romance, laughter and loyalty. It's also about three women taking stock of their lives - with a bit of drunken karaoke thrown in to the mix.

For Claudia and her friends, life will never be the same after their much-needed holiday in paradise

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Jan 19, 2011 Bree T rated it liked it

Shelves: library-reads, chick-lit, women-s-fiction

Claudia Taylor is about to turn 39 and her life is going no where. Somehow, without her realising it, her twenties and most of her thirties are long behind her now in a blur of mind-numbing office jobs, inappropriate and disastrous relationships and monstrous debt. An ill-timed and probably ill-thought out fling with her boss has just hit the skids and as a bit of a kiss off, her boss sends her to Greece (all expenses paid) for a couple of weeks. Claudia just has to do this one thing for him in Claudia Taylor is about to turn 39 and her life is going no where. Somehow, without her realising it, her twenties and most of her thirties are long behind her now in a blur of mind-numbing office jobs, inappropriate and disastrous relationships and monstrous debt. An ill-timed and probably ill-thought out fling with her boss has just hit the skids and as a bit of a kiss off, her boss sends her to Greece (all expenses paid) for a couple of weeks. Claudia just has to do this one thing for him in Athens while she’s over there and then the rest of the time is hers to enjoy in Santorini.

So Claudia convinces her two best friends since high school, Sophie – thin, gorgeous, former corporate lawyer now wife to workaholic and mother of a toddler, and Tara – aspiring writer, suffering from a serious case of lack of inspiration, to come with her. The accomodation is all booked and paid for courtesy of Claudia’s boss (and former lover, but Sophie and Tara don’t need to know about that small detail) so they need only pay for their flights. Sophie of course has to bring her young son but apart from that, the three of them are free to have fun in Greece, reliving memories of holidays gone by together when they were all young and single.

Flying to Athens to complete the transaction for Claudia’s boss doesn’t go exactly as smoothly as Claudia hoped. She has an awful amount of trouble tracking down ‘Con’, realising that the directions she’s been given have taken her to the red light district and that maybe some things are going on here that she doesn’t exactly want to be eye witness to. The three girls hotfoot it to Santorini, with the promise that ‘Con’ will catch up with them when the very busy businessman has a moment. Claudia is a little wary of this odd situation but she mostly puts that out of her mind in order to have fun and enjoy her holiday.

A few encounters with a handsome Aussie get her blood racing – he was at Brisbane airport, she saw him on the street in Athens and now here he is in Santorini. Despite the fact that she feels that maybe, her holiday fling shouldn’t be with a boy from Yackandandah she can’t deny that well, the Aussie’s cute.

Unfortunately a few pesky incidents keep cropping up and threatening to ruin an otherwise perfect holiday.

Claudia’s Big Break is a contemporary women’s fiction novel written by an Australian author, Lisa Heidke. I haven’t read her previous two novels but this one was generating enough chat on Twitter for it to catch my eye. The plot actually reminds me a bit of a novel I read many years ago, entitled Girls on the Run, by Talia Lyon. Both novels involve three friends taking a holiday overseas (one with a child in tow), a mysterious stranger who pops up in the most unlikely way, a fling between one of the characters and their boss and the underlying threat of something sinister that the reader identifies way, way before the actual character set up to take the fall does.

I know Lisa Heidke has children, but I’m not sure that she’s traveled with them the way Sophie does with her young son, Levi in this novel, taking him overseas with her. However, whenever I was reading any scene where he was throwing a tantrum, being obsessed with the word ‘poo’, spilling drinks on the plane, etc, I was nodding my head in agreement. I have a 2.5yo son named Hunter and quite frankly the idea of taking him on a plane to Athens has me screaming on the inside in horror. I also related so well to Sophie’s feelings post-Levi, about how she felt she’d lost a bit of herself now. I don’t struggle as much as Sophie did, but I’ve had those feelings and then felt guilty about it. Too often the fact that parenting is hard and can be unrewarding at some times, is glossed over. You’re a bad mother if you admit to not coping, or not adjusting to just being there for your baby instead of being your own person. If you want your life back, you shouldn’t have had kids. But these are all normal feelings and it’s nice to see them written so plainly with no judgement attached!

Claudia as a character, was a bit of a tough one. She was very naive – she really should’ve copped on to quite a lot in this book before she did. She was drifting through her life, approaching 40, in a job she barely tolerated, a string of bad relationships behind her and she was living with her best friend because of her crippling debt. Although I felt sorry for her with how she obtained the debt, the sympathy kind of disappeared when she kept adding to it with silly purchases and not taking responsibility and trying to pay the debt off properly. She does a lot of growing up in this novel – when we meet her she’s still living almost like a college student but by the time the novel comes to a close she’s made some really decent and mature decisions about her situation and we can only assume that she goes ahead and implements them and changes her life for the better.

If you like reading novels about women and their relationships with each other, more so than with their romantic partners then you’ll enjoy this one. The relationship between the three girls is deep and layered and the holiday brings out the best and the worst in all of them but it’s a nice, easy summer afternoon read perfect for the beach, pool or just a lazy day in the sun. ...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Paula Phillips rated it it was amazing

Lisa Heidke has done it again, with another fabulous Chick Lit Novel and in this case Claudia's Big Break comes in more ways than one. Claudia has a habit of sleeping with men that really are unavailable , for instance her boss Marcus. In order to as it seems sever their ties, Marcus sends Claudia on a two-week vacation all expenses paid to Santonori , Greek Islands. It has been ten years, since Claudia and her two best friends last went on a trip , so she decides to invite them on the journey a ...more

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