It Was Always You by Emma Cooper published by Headline Books

It’s the last night in October 1999 and the clocks are going back. Will and Ella are teenagers at the fair with a group of friends and that’s where their love affair began.

Fast forward through marriage, children and empty nest and life suddenly takes a jolt for Ella. She remembers back to the night when she first met Will and recalls bits of a conversation with a woman in a green coat and red scarf. Facing a crisis in her marriage, Ella has to confront the past to see if her marriage has a future.

I am really mixed about how I felt about characters in this book- there were times when I loved Ella’s strength yet there were other times when I found her really annoying and irritating especially when she spoke to Robin – she seemed to regress into a teenager.

Will and Ella’s friend Cole was another enigma for me – he was a constant in their life and almost a cuckoo in the nest, but no one seemed to notice and there were times when I really wanted to shout at him.

Saying all this, the story was a compelling read, and you turn the pages wanting to know what’s going to happen next. There was a part near the end that I wasn’t expecting and when I read it, it felt like a body blow.

This book kept me gripped right up until the last page!

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