Story for the Week
The first Sunday in March, and my 2024 reading goal is already at risk. What?!?!?!
By this time last year, I had finished eleven books. That’s right. ELEVEN! Eight weeks into 2024, and I’m already two books behind schedule. I’ve finished five books of my goal of 50 for the year. I finished three books in January (versus six last year) and a pitiful two books in February (versus five last year). I say again…WHAT?!?!?!
Let’s face it. Life happens. We had some family stuff that took up more of my time than usual. I spent a couple of weeks heading to my dad’s every day after work. Speaking of work, things have been ridiculously busy there for the past two months, so I’ve been working more and sleeping less. I try to read before bed on those crazy long days, but I find myself starting to doze after about ten minutes. On weekends, vegging out in front of the television appeals more because I need to give my brain a break.
So what do you do when you committed (to yourself) to publish a new blog post every week? Well first, you panic and try to power through the book you’re currently reading, but you can only read so fast. Second, you ever so briefly consider trying to squeeze in a short book, but then you remember that you’re barely able to finish the book you’re reading so starting something new doesn’t make sense. Third, you consider writing a general post that doesn’t include a review but can’t think of anything to write about. Fourth, you consider skipping a week, but that’s not an option. (If you don’t understand why, please reread the first sentence in this paragraph.) Finally, you scroll through your Goodreads profile to see if you have any good reviews left that you haven’t already published because you’re pretty sure you used most of those the year your husband died and you read only seven books in eight months. 😲
And then lo and behold, you scroll back to the year before you started blogging. You discover one book with a 5-star rating that you shockingly never posted to your blog. It was the third book you read by this particular author, and in the five-and-a-half years since you discovered her, you’ve read 15, and she is always on your must-read list.
Revisiting an Amanda Prowse from 2019….
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for The Light in the Hallway by Amanda Prowse
346 pages
Publisher: Amazon Publishing UK
Publication Date: November 11, 2019
I originally received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK.
Publisher’s Description
When Nick’s wife Kerry falls ill and dies, he realizes for the first time how fragile his happiness has always been, and how much he’s been taking his good life and wonderful family for granted. Now, he suddenly finds himself navigating parenthood alone, unsure how to deal with his own grief, let alone that of his teenage son, Olly.
In the depths of his heartbreak, Nick must find a way to navigate life that pleases his son, his in-laws, his family and his friends—while honoring what Kerry meant to them all. But when it comes to his own emotions, Nick doesn’t know where to begin. Kerry was his childhood sweetheart—but was she really the only one who could ever make him happy?
And in the aftermath of tragedy, can Nick and his son find themselves again?
************
Amanda Prowse’s books always make me run the gamut of emotions, and The Light in the Hallway was no exception.
Only in his mid-30s, Nick loses his childhood sweetheart to cancer just as his son Oliver is about to go off to university. He and Olly are devastated, and even though Nick and Kerry’s marriage was not perfect, Nick is lost without her and needs to learn how to navigate life without Kerry and face the loneliness of his newly empty nest.
With Kerry’s voice in his head as a guide, Nick faces the trials of when and how to move on if that’s even possible for him to fathom. He seems to disappoint Olly and his sister-in-law at every turn, and he finds himself the victim of bad timing over and over.
The story unfolds with alternating chapters between now and the “summer of absolutely brilliant” (1992), so we learn as we go how Nick became the man he is today.
This book is an emotional, heartbreak-to-happiness journey worth taking.
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