Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
This book focuses on the life of Arden Hall. She’s recently divorced, doing a job she’s now finds boring and lives a very quiet life. One day while visiting a friend in hospital Arden stumbles across her former lover from thirty years ago when she was in university.
Mac Barley-Thomas was a charismatic Film Studies Lecturer who Arden found herself falling hopeless in love with but now he lays in a hospital bed suffering from a brain injury that has left him unable to converse. All he manages to mutter are small references from the movies they watched together during their affair.
Arden finds herself visiting Mac as much as she can and remembering the good times she spent with him and the hot and steamy affair the two participated in.
This book transitions from present day to the past with the help of the movie references that Mac managed to whisper to Arden and I found myself really liking this. It felt real. While to book relies heavily on movie references it isn’t too much of an issue if you haven’t seen the films. I had only seen a couple of them and felt that I could still understand the story.
If you’re looking for a light-hearted romance, then I don’t think this book is one you should pick up. This is a redemption story which at times felt long-winded and one you would need to put a chunk of time into.
There are a lot of up and downs in this book and whilst I am happy that it reflects a lot of taboo topics I felt like there were too many in this book and it made it slightly unrealistic in my eyes. Another thing I found myself struggling with was the affair. I was very much aware that this was a large part of the book unfortunately it made it hard for me to feel sorry for either of the characters in some parts. That’s a personal preference though and overall I still really enjoyed the book.
The characters were well written, and I found myself being sucked into this world, wanting to know how it ended which in turn made it hard for me to put it down. This is my first book of Fiona Collins and I after reading You, Me and the Movies I will be picking up some of her other books!
Rating: 4/5*
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