London, With Love by Sarra Manning
My review
5/5 stars
This book follows Jennifer and Nick over the span of a total of 40 years. They meet as teenagers in the 1980s, becoming friends quickly, and the story charts their relationship highs and lows all the way up to 2021.
What struck me most about this story is the realism of it. It wasn't some soppy, sugary romance. It was gritty, dark at times, heartfelt, believable, and held stable by the inclusion of instantly recognisable world events such as the death of Princess Diana and 9/11. The descriptions of how the characters got through those world events felt visceral, almost uncomfortably so given that I have lived through them all myself and can remember how I felt about all of them, and so accurate to how people reacted at the time.
Jennifer and Nick both had their fair share of problems and bad timing, but I like that there was always an undercurrent of interest and feeling running between them. I also particularly related to Jennifer's constant need to reinvent herself in an attempt to fit in, and her struggle with confidence over the decades that the story covers - it is a common story for so many women and this book portrayed it with a degree of reality that you don't see very often in romance novels.
I managed to read this mostly in one sitting - I did the first 40 pages when I was grabbing a quick half hour between tasks, and then did the rest in one evening once my kids were in bed. I stayed up until 1am to finish it because I just couldn't bear to put it down until I knew how it had played out. That happens to me so rarely as a parent - it's hard for me to priortise anything over sleep these days, so I must have really enjoyed the book!
Book blurb
London. Nine million people. Two hundred and seventy tube stations. Every day, thousands of chance encounters, first dates, goodbyes and happy ever afters.
And for twenty years it's been where one man and one woman can never get their timing right.
Jennifer and Nick meet as teenagers and over the next two decades, they fall in and out of love with each other. Sometimes they start kissing. Sometimes they're just friends. Sometimes they stop speaking, but they always find their way back to each other.
But after all this time, are they destined to be together or have they finally reached the end of the line?
More...
You can buy the book here now. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton.
For more on the author, you can follow her on Instagram, or check out her Goodreads page.
