Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2012

In her blockbuster international bestsellers, Harriet Evans perfectly captures the complex lives of young twenty-first-century career women with an “effortlessly readable . . . comic style and loveable characters” (Marie Claire, UK).At twenty-two, Eleanor Bee is sure about three things: she wants to move to London and become a literary superstar; she wants to be able to afford to buy a coffee and croissant every morning; and after seeing what divorce did to her parents—especially her mum—she doesn’t believe in happy endings.
Elle moves to London. She gets a job at Bluebird Books, a charmingly old-fashioned publisher. She falls out of bars, wears too-short skirts, makes lots of mistakes, and feels like she’s learning nothing and everything at the same time. And then, out of the blue, she falls in love, and that’s when she realizes just how much growing up she has to do.
Ten years on, Elle lives in New York, and you could say she has found success; certainly her life has changed in ways she could never have predicted. But no matter where you go and how much you try to run away, the past has a funny way of catching up with you. . . .

About the Author

Harriet Evans, a former publishing executive in the UK, is the author of four novels. She lives in London where she is writing her next novel.

Details

Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Gallery Books; Original edition (June 5, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 145167726X
ISBN-13: 978-1451677263

SOURCE: PUBLISHER

MY THOUGHTS

I only received this book yesterday, but thought I would get a post up about this today. Harriet Evans is one of my most favorite chick lit authors. You can read my reviews of her other books below. This premise of this new one sounds fabulous! I should have my thoughts together on this one in a week or two.

Love Always by Harriet Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Natasha Kapoor returns to Cornwall for her grandmother’s funeral and learns that secrets in her huge, extended family have lead to some weird dynamics. The truth begins to emerge when she is given her aunt Cecily’s diary that documents some starling truths and sets Natasha on a road to personal discovery. There are a lot of layers to Natasha’s history and it is wonderful to see her grow as she discovers the truth about her very existence. The main secret is that Natasha’s grandmother, a famous painter, has stopped painting after her youngest daughter, Cecily, falls to her death. Natasha looks enough like Cecily to be her twin. There are so many entanglements in this family, you need a chart to keep track. They aren’t hard to follow and each page brings about a new enlightenment on just what it means to be related.

In a true mystery, the story about Cecily’s death and the chaos it creates within the family is told through flashbacks and portions of her diary so you slowly begin to see all of the circumstance surrounding her death. This story will really keep your attention as it did mine as you try to guess what really happened to Cecily. I really couldn’t put it down once I started. Natasha is such a complex character and I really wanted to find out what was holding her back in her life, whether her jewelery designing business or her love life. I loved how the story pulls past and present together to create her personal history. If you enjoy Madeleine Wickham or Jennifer Weiner, you are going to love this one. I think this may be my favorite Harriet Evans book yet! I would always try to get the UK versions as soon as they were released and I wish I hadn’t waited on this one. Pure reading joy!

The Love Of Her Life by Harriet Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Excellent English Chick Lit — Don’t let the length of this book scare you, it is a great read. Kate is living in New York and avoiding something from her past life in London three years before. The flashbacks to her London life are well done to give you a feel for her previous carefree life and you will find yourself wanting to read it quickly to find out what went so horribly wrong. Yes, it is a cliche’, but the story telling is anything but that.

View all my reviews

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