The Love of My Life

Kirkus: A husband learns his wife is hiding a secret life.

Emma and Leo have been happily married for seven years, although they’ve weathered their share of struggles (such as infertility and Emma’s cancer diagnosis). Emma’s a marine ecologist and erstwhile TV presenter whose bubbly personality is loved by all, while Leo is an obituary writer and his wife’s No. 1 fan. Both are head over heels for their young daughter, Ruby. Although Emma’s currently doing well, Leo is given the job of prewriting her obituary, a common strategy with people who are in the public eye. In his quest to write the perfect tribute to his wife, he starts looking into her past and discovers a few inconsistencies he can’t explain. Why did Emma lie about show more her university degree? Why is she so cagey about her life before Leo? How is she connected to a famous actress who just went missing? And, most importantly, is her name even Emma? As Emma attempts to cover up her secrets, Leo digs through their house for clues and tracks down people from her past in an attempt to figure out why she’s lying and what she’s hiding from him. The old life Emma tried so carefully to hide threatens to destroy the new life she’s built with Leo. Walsh masterfully shows both Emma’s and Leo’s points of view while maintaining an intoxicating air of mystery. As readers get to know them both, it seems unbelievable that lovable Emma could be deceiving Leo…but how else to explain the secrets he’s uncovering? The big reveal about Emma’s life manages to be both surprising and heartbreaking, with many twists and turns along the way.

A propulsive thriller with heart that will keep readers guessing. show less

I was surprised by this book. It starts out like a contemporary women’s fiction. Not really my thing, but I liked the characters, so continued reading. Kind of a slow start but good bedtime reading. Then the twists and turns started. Just past the halfway point I just had to keep reading until I finished. Not disappointed. I loved this book!

This book is full of people we're supposed to love and forgive for doing one stupid thing after another. Ultimately the only reasonable adult is Sheila, a former spy who, I guess, sees all human folly and does her best not to let it get her down. Everyone loves everyone unconditionally until they don't. There are way too many twists to be realistic.

Emma and Leo have the perfect marriage, beautiful daughter and successful careers. Emma is a well known marine biologist but is hiding some dark secrets, secrets that might be able to stay hidden until she is faced with a deadly illness. Leo writes obituaries of the well know and famous. While dealing with his wife’s up illness, he starts writing and researching her life. Some things just don’t add up and sends him down a rabbit hole and he questions everything he thought he knew.

As with Ghosted, I went in thinking one thing and totally found another. Full of twists and turns, this book had me reading well into the early morning. Such an emotional read! Relatable. Great characters. Wonderful story. Another author going on my must show more read list!

Thanks to Ms. Walsh, Pamela Dorman Books and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone! show less

In a Nutshell: Great in bits and pieces but doesn’t come together into a cohesive whole. This might have ended up a strong favourite of mine if I could have connected with the writing style better. But the disconnect with the plot and the decisions of one MC resulted in a strictly average experience.

Story Synopsis:

Emma and Leo have been married for seven years and live happily with their three year old daughter Ruby and their dog John Keats. Through ups and downs, they’ve been supportive of each other, even when Emma gets diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and begins the uncertain journey to recovery. Leo is an obituarist by profession and as Emma, a marine biologist, happens to be a somewhat famous celeb through her stint on TV as

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a presenter, Leo works on a stock obituary for his wife as his way of coping through her treatment. To his shock, his research leads him to realise that the Emma he knew from the past decade is a very different person. Who is the real Emma?
Emma, meanwhile, realises that Leo has begun cracking her carefully constructed shell. Will she be able to tell him about “the love of my life” without putting their marriage in jeopardy?
The story comes to us in the first person perspectives of Leo and Emma.

In terms of its premise, the book felt tailor-made for me. I loved the drama plus mystery vibes in the blurb. However, this doesn’t transform well to reality. The book seems like a hodgepodge of various genres – romance, suspense, family drama, literary fiction, domestic thriller – without doing justice to most.

Emma seems to have a multitude of secrets, ranging from the trivial to the terrifying. But I wasn’t convinced at all by her reasons to keep so much of her past a secret from Leo. Some of the justifications were valid, I agree. But the rest were just RIDICULOUS! I simply didn’t get her! The rest of the characters, bar Leo, also seem shifty, not leading you to believe any of them. Plus, there’s a deliberate attempt to mislead through the interconnected characters (Don’t get me started on the coincidence of so many random characters being known to each other!) Leo is the only one I found somewhat real in his emotions and the only one I felt somewhat sorry for.

The book began terribly slow, but in a strange irony, the initial section was the best part for me. The way in which the characters are established and the suspense is created is wonderful. As the book progressed, its pace increased somewhat but the secrets and the twists became more and more farfetched. I want my book twists to be more “Wow!” than “WTF!” Thus my rating kept sliding downwards with every turn of the page. The ending was too silly and predictable. A story needs to have an element of believability. This one didn’t meet that criterion by far.

On the positive side, for the first time ever, I saw a character working as an “obituarist”. I had always guessed that newspapers might be having some obituaries in stock but the extent to which this system covers potential deaths was very interesting to read. I loved Ruby – she was adorable. I liked how the title could range from something romantic to something creepy, depending on how you read it. (And both those meanings apply to the book.)

All in all, this could have been a great story for me. But the haphazard development of the situations and the unrealistic behaviour of most of the characters made this a strictly average experience.

2 stars.

My thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Love of My Life”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn't work out better.

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I listened to this on audio. Initially, I thought it a bit sappy, but as I continued to listen, I thought quite a bit about the issues in the book, so in the end I did like it. It's the story of a marriage, Emma is a Marine Biologist and her husband Leo is an obituary writer. They have an idyllic life with a young child, except that Emma has been fighting cancer. When she is given the cancer all-clear, Leo starts to write a "stock obituary" of his wife, and finds out that there is a lot he doesn't know about her, including her real name. Lots of twists in the plot, and unlikely coincidences.

I read this as book club selection and listed to it in audiobook format.

This mystery-thriller novel is about a wife who is hiding a dark past. Her husband becomes suspicious and starts a search to discover the truth. When a famous woman goes missing the plot thickens as all involved hurl themselves toward discovery, pain, remembrance, and new truths. This book is a binge-worthy page turner. Just when the reader (and the characters) think they have something figured out, a new piece of evidence proves them wrong. The way the mystery is laid out is masterful. Yes, there are some overly convenient not entirely believable plot devices, but they are forgivable. If you start this book just be sure you clear your calendar for a few days show more because you will not want to put it down. show less