Skip to main content

BOOKS ON TOUR: The Love of My Life - Rosie Walsh


Genre: Women's Fiction | Romance | Mystery

Release Date: Expected 23rd June 2022

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

"The problem with lying to your husband is that it changes everything and nothing."

Emma was late to her own wedding because she had to stop and photograph the tide … in her wedding dress. But Leo married her anyway, because that was Emma and he loved her regardless.

But the woman he's loved for a decade, the woman he married and raised his daughter with isn't Emma. Emma doesn't exist. His wife is a stranger, and he doesn't even know her real name. He only found out by chance; when she got sick he started to write about her, about her life, but even his job as an obituary writer couldn't prepare him for trying to write about someone like Emma. 

His digging didn't just bring up dirt, it brought up something worse - little loose threads in her life that began to unravel. And now Emma needs to try and prove to her husband that despite all the secrets, he is the love of her life. But do that, she'll finally have to reveal who she really was, and the love of her former life. 

"It's only when something's damaged beyond repair that we realise how beautiful it was."

A simply stunning tale about love, loss and life - a story where nothing is as it seems, and the line between good and bad blurs depending on which way you're looking and who's talking. There was a spellbinding sense of mystery and intrigue, not in the end-of-the-world way but in sense of the very worst thing that can happen in real life and can be even more heartbreakingly terrifying.

This was intensely compelling, I tore through the pages desperate to find out what Emma was hiding and just what events could've made her leave an entire life behind her. Told from the perspective of Emma and Leo, each of them had such uniquely strong voices - they jump between the revelations happening now and the memories of their joint and separate pasts, creating a vivid picture of their lives naturally. 

The Love of my Life takes the reader to the darkest, most desperate parts of the human condition and tries to search for the beauty of redemption in whichever form it takes.

"Like a solo traveller in the arrivals hall of an airport; that absurd hope we hold, as humans, that we're not alone, even when all the evidence tells us we are."

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Pan Macmillan for inviting me to take part in this tour. I was gifted a reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review. 

CW: Cancer, Chemotherapy, Adoption, Post Partum Depression, Stalking, Death, Alcohol, Drugs, Suicide. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

REVIEW: This Could Be Us by Clare McGowan

Genre: Fiction | Literary Fiction Release Date: Expected 1st June 2023 Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group | Corsair  Kate has done the unthinkable. She'd worked hard to build a perfect life for herself, while ignoring her growing unhappiness. But when her second child was born profoundly disabled, reality hit. Unable to cope, Kate left - disappearing without a trace. She ends up in LA, with a glittering career and a new family of sorts, but the guilt is still suffocating. Husband Andrew was left to pick up the pieces and care for their disabled daughter and angry, confused son. Bereft and broken, he leaned on Olivia, Kate's best friend. She's been by his side ever since, ignoring her own needs to meet his. Years later, Andrew has written a memoir about his daughter learning to communicate against all odds. But when Kate's new producer husband decides he wants to make a film of it, their worlds collide once again. Now, Kate must return to the life she abandoned and reck...

REVIEW: Live, Laugh, Lesbian by Helen Scott

Genre: Non-Fiction | Memoir | LGTBQ+  Release Date: 19th October 2023 Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Part memoir, part guide, part conversation and all queer joy — Live, Laugh, Lesbian is a brilliantly warm and friendly journey into the queer experience, not only from the author but from plenty of other lesbian, queer, bisexual and pansexual contributors who bring a unique viewpoint and voice and also show a beautiful diverse, intersectional scope of the queer spectrum and welcomes in queer people and allies of any kind to come feel the love. The book is very conversational, talking to the reader in a fun, friendly way — at times I rolled my eyes as the use of “famalam” but as a previous patron of Colours and Chicagos I’m not in a position to judge the Essex-isms. It’s full of anecdotes and observations that were witty and relatable as well as talking is through the more difficult side of queerness like dealing with workplace discrimination, religious trauma and coming out to family...

BOOK TOUR STOP x RANDOM THINGS TOURS: Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen

  " This town has secrets that are best left alone." Author Hannah is a success, on paper at least. She's receiving critical acclaim and praise worldwide and her work is regarded as some of the best. She writes literature, not just books. But the reality is, outside of the literary circles nobody actually reads her work. But when she finally snaps at a book event and publicly criticises the genre fiction books that outsell hers, claiming they're easy and mindless she's challenged to write her own crime fiction novel in just thirty days by an author she loathes. Desperate not to lose to him, her editor arranges for her to spend a month in a quiet, cold village in Iceland hoping that the solitude will spark inspiration.  But instead of writing a murder story - she's in one . Just before she arrives, the body of a young man is pulled from the icy waters and her search for ideas soon becomes a search for a killer. And if she's not careful, she might end up the...