5* Review: Falling by Julie Cohen

Buy HERE from Amazon.co.uk

Honor’s secret threatens to rob her of the independence she’s guarded ferociously for eighty years.

Jo’s secret could smash apart the ‘normal’ family life she’s fought so hard to build.

Lydia’s could bring her love - or the loss of everything that matters to her.

I first discovered Julie Cohen when Transworld kindly sent me a copy of Dear Thing in 2013. I was hooked after a few pages and fell in love with Cohen's storytelling voice, her warmth and humour. The award winning Where Love Lies was to be released the following year and that too was wonderful, a very different story but just as good. I was ecstatic when I saw that there was a new release on the horizon and quickly requested a copy to review but I am always wary when I really have loved an authors previous work...what if this one doesn't live up to my expectations?

There was certainly nothing to fear!

I read Falling in two days - completely destroying my own word count, but it was totally 

worth it.

The story is centred round a three women within a family: octogenarian grandmother, Honor, mother to Lydia and daughter-in-law to Honor, Jo, and sixteen year old Lydia. The chapters are told from each of their points of view offering all round windows into their lives.

Honor is a cantankerous old woman, doesn't like mess or noise in her home and likes her own way. So when she has a fall and breaks a hip she is mortified to have to move in with Jo and family for a while. She and Jo do not see eye to eye and tensions have been very strained since Stephen, Honor's son died ten years previously when Lydia was very small. Jo remarried and had two more children so Honor felt truly a stranger in their home.

Jo's husband left her holding the babies and ran away with the au-pair, charming character. She's run ragged, has no time for herself whatsoever and feels old and dowdy...until an interesting new neighbour moves in. She really is a wonderful, kind, caring mother though and seems to have the patience of a saint! (at this point it is clear to me that I identify more with Honor. We share the same level of cantankerousness).

And lastly, Lydia. Sixteen, with all the social worries of a sixteen year old, about to take her GCSEs and harbouring a huge secret that would rock her world if it came out. Plus she misses the father she never really knew, she has to help out with her younger brother and sister who although she adores - are really taxing at times.

The dynamics of the family are just wonderful, I absolutely ADORED Honor's character - and there are certain scenes in the book, especially with the children that were so comical and heart warming, it really is a wonderful book.

As always, secrets don't necessarily stay buried - and this builds up to a massive climax, with a wonderful ending. There is such an undercurrent of encouragement in this book, it was extremely uplifting to read!

If I could give this book more than 5* I would, and it has definitely gone in to my top 5 reads of all!

Many thanks to Transworld for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Where Love Lies by Julie Cohen - 5* Review

Buy HERE from Amazon.co.uk

When Felicity steps off the train on the way to meet her husband, she is so sure of everything. Where she is heading, what she will eat at the restaurant, the first words her husband will say when she arrives, their life together.

Then she catches a scent of perfume in the air. Forgotten emotions rush to the surface, memories of another man she loved years ago.

As it happens again and again, Felicity beginsto make decisions that no one can understand. What is happening to her? Is she losing a partof herself, or finding one?

How can she truly know where love lies?

Felicity is struggling with her life; her career as a children’s writer/illustrator is in jeopardy as she seems to be suffering from an unyielding writer’s block, and she feels suffocated in her marriage to Quinn. As lovely as he is to her, she feels stifled with the pressure and lack of privacy from his family. She seems to not know where she feels she belongs any more.

She begins to smell a the sweet scent of frangipani that evokes memories from her past – in particular memories of her recently deceased mother. She knows that the scent takes her straight back to Evan, her old love. Her heart tells her to seek him out to see if the feelings she is having about him are real, but her head tells her to stay where she is with a man who loves her. What does she trust more? Is it really fate at work?

I loved Where Love Lies almost as much as I loved Cohen’s Dear Thing, but don’t be deterred by the ‘almost’ – it really is the most wonderful story, beautifully written in a style that Cohen has marked as her own. She is a remarkable writer with the ability to draw the reader into the story with the most engaging plot and characters.

The characters are exceptionally well developed; Felicity is flighty, indecisive, and at times, infuriating with the decisions she makes, but then we understand why and in the third part of the book I felt a real, emotional tie with her and saw her stark vulnerability.

Quinn too was irritatingly suffocating at first and I found myself trying to escape from him too, and as for his mother… but as the book went on he grew on me a lot. In fact by the end the whole family are shown in a completely different light, as you become aware of the secrets they have been hiding under their Stepford exterior.

Fabulous book… highly recommended!