I'm not sure I can put into words how much I've liked this book!
It's my first Rosie Walsh, but I've had The Man Who Didn't Call on my radar for a while and I'm going to buy it as soon as I finish this review.
The Love Of My Life is just the perfect mix of features that makes for a great read: it's gripping and compelling, it's a page turner, there's mystery and secrets, it's emotional, moving and thought provoking.
I also listened to the audiobook version and I must say that I found it even more tears-jerking, I loved the narrators!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC and an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first book by Rosie Walsh and it was thoroughly enjoyable.
The story is told from two points of view, Emma, with a history and background she is trying to keep secret, and Leo, her loving husband. Leo can sense something is not right and that Emma is struggling, which leads him to try to find out why.
The plot is full of intricate, twisty secrets, which inevitably surface throughout the book. There were times when I felt I knew where the story was going and other points where I was totally blindsided.
Some difficult social issues are tackled well with care and understanding.
There is an increasing cast of characters introduced throughout, clearly brought to life and all adding to the levels of complexity in this captivating narrative.
Having listened to the audio version, the two narrators made it easy to follow the changing viewpoints, but I have to admit a couple of the ‘voices’ they did grated a little, like Ruby, their daughter.
Overall a clever, great ‘read’.

The Love of my Life by Rosie Walsh
Narrated by Imogen Church, Theo Solomon

I received an advance review copy for free thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan UK and I am leaving this review voluntarily

I have held you at night for ten years and I didn't even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house.

Who are you?

Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she's told them about herself is a lie.

Rosie has managed to write a book that combines the best part of a romance novel and the page-turning twist of a thriller. I was torn between rushing through the book to find out who Emma really was and savouring the story. Whilst the title gives the idea that this is a romance, it covers so much more. It was nice to see both sides of the magnificent characters that Rosie has created.

Rating 4/5

I wasn't sure what to expect from a book classified as Romance and Mystery/Thriller, but in the end I would describe The Love of My Life as an atmospherically sad, melancholy mystery. It starts with Emma having a rare illness that suddenly becomes serious. Her husband, who is an obituary writer, copes with this by digging into her past to write a stock obituary for her "just in case". In doing this he uncovers some shocking secrets that change everything for them!
The characters are well developed and the storyline is fascinating, but the overall mood of this story was so sad that I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. Possibly I just wasn't in the right mood for it at the time, I usually enjoy sad stories but this one dragged a bit for me.
Imogen Church and Theo Solomon were great as narrators of the audiobooks, I thought they represented the personality of the characters perfectly.

I was very excited to received this after I thoroughly enjoyed this author’s previous book. I had high expectations but was a little anxious that it would be unable meet the same standards. I’m delighted to say this reached and exceeded all expectations and Rosie Walsh has become an author that I will automatically be picking up in the future.

The Love of my Life covers some very sensitive issues, so please ensure you do your research before reading as it could potentially be triggering for some.

The narration of this is well performed, resulting in a very dramatic and powerful audiobook. The characters are well developed and I became emotionally invested in Emma's and Leo's story very early on. For my own personal preferences, there did seem to be little drag in the middle of this, but was well worth sticking with and didn’t dampen my enjoyment.

This is a romance and a thriller all rolled into one book! Secrets are revealed, good news is welcomed, hearts are broken and the timeline between past and present is brilliantly done, making this emotionally charged throughout. I am confident that this will be very successful once released so I recommend pre-ordering (in any format), to avoid missing out!

A thoroughly enjoyable read that gives off thriller/mystery vibes in that I needed to really know what was happening! I found the characters likeable and relatable so enjoyed following on their journey. I was shocked by certain plot twists and I kept wanting to read more.

A very good, enticing read but another one to check for trigger warnings particularly surrounding pregnancy and postpartum.

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan UK Audio and Rosie Walsh for an audio-ARC in return for an honest review.

Emma and Leo have been together for 10 years, they have a daughter, a dog and a house. But Emma is not who she says she is.

What a delightful little thriller. This is a very tame thriller but wonderful nonetheless. The narrators; Imogen Church and Theo Solomon do a great job bringing this book to life.

I think this will be more popular than 'The Man Who Didn't Call'.

This is a heartbreaking story of love and motherhood and the complications that occur after a lie.
Thank you for the opportunity to listen to this audio book.

A book of romance, mystery and thriller all rolled into one, i absolutely loved this book, the characters were loveable and relatable. It touched many areas of motherhood and mental health which could be a trigger for some readers. But I felt it looked at these areas with sensitivity and would highly recommend. I loved the narrator really bought the characters to life.

The story evoked mixed emotions in me.

The premise was excellent and I loved the story, with its complexity and intricacies.

I was unconvinced about the relationship between the two main characters and found Emma quite annoying.

The story developed slowly but the imagery was quite beautiful.

The male narrator was fine but the the female narrator added to the irritating female character.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

The narration is spot on.
The story itself is so sad with endless ups and downs. The tale is told through different characters eyes over different time scales popping back and forward in time throughout. Sometimes this can be confusing but I didn’t find it so on this case. The author hides the full truth from the reader almost till the end just as Emma hides her story from those she loves. Read it. You won’t regret it

Oh my goodness this book is an emotional rollercoaster and a half!! Part way through I was thinking it was good and then the twists kept on coming and it escalated to amazing!

The story deals worth so many difficult topics, PND, adoption, family, convictions…it has it all. It really helps the reader to look at all of these from multiple perspectives and leaves you feeling wrung out yet warm inside.

Highly recommended

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of the audiobook of ‘The Love of My Life’ in exchange for an honest review. As I received an audiobook copy I will be giving feedback on the narrators too but this didn’t alter my star rating.
I’ll be honest, I approached this book rather tentatively as I wasn’t a big fan of ‘The Man Who Didn’t Call’, and I still believe that Rosie Walsh is the queen of characters who jump to crazy conclusions. In this case, Leo, one of our protagonists, is an obituary writer, and as his wife, Emma, is relatively well know and has had a recent cancer diagnosis he is asked to write her obituary. He feels it falls a bit flat and starts to wonder why he hasn’t managed to write a more nuanced portrayal of his wife. Obvious solution: she is hiding a dark secret.
Well as it happens he isn’t wrong but talk about leaping to conclusions.
Meanwhile, an actress, Janice Rothschild has gone missing. We know from the chapter’s written from Emma’s POV that she is connected to Janice’s husband, Jeremy Rothschild and she hates Janice with a passion. What’s going on? Probably not the answer you expect.
I actually thought this was a very good book that dealt with some difficult issues in a very empathetic and tender way. The first was half was a little slow but once you get to the turning point it really picks up and you find yourself hooked. I don’t want to give too much away but if you like a domestic thriller such as a Liane Moriarty then you will enjoy this book. You may have to suspend your disbelief that it has taken Leo ten years to pick up on some red flags in his marriage but if you can push that to one side it is a well plotted book where we receive information little by little, just enough to keep us hooked but not enough that we can get to the conclusion ourselves straight away.

Narrators: At first I found the narrators spoke too slowly and it added to the feeling of the plot dragging. However they grew on me, and I think for Emma’s character the choice to speak slowly may have been deliberate. Later on in the novel, when she has an almost manic phase, the narrator speaks like a whirlwind and it is extremely effective at getting across the character’s mental state at that point in time. It was a good length audiobook and easy to listen to whilst multitasking.

Love! Love! Love!
I adore a Rosie Walsh novel and this was no different, great story, loved the characters and works great as an audiobook

I don't listen to audiobooks when I haven't previously read a physical copy of a book so this was a first for me. Hence, my review will be in two parts... the narration and the story.

I had a rocky ride with the narration of this book. The voice of Emma put so much emotion into it that I felt like I was listening to a play performance rather than a reading of the novel. The other narrations I got along well with but Emma's sections grated on me. Luckily at about 50% I got used to it but the different narrators had different speaking volumes and so I found myself constantly changing the volume of my earphones.

Now onto a more positive point - the story! This was a story of trauma, secret keeping and complicated love and it has so many ups and downs I could refer to it as a bookish rollercoaster. The plot was highly interesting and the twists slotted in with impeccable timing. I would hugely recommend picking this up but in the physical copy version rather than the audiobook.

"The problem with lying to your husband is that it changes everything and nothing."

Emma was late to her own wedding because she had to stop and photograph the tide … in her wedding dress. But Leo married her anyway, because that was Emma and he loved her regardless.

But the woman he's loved for a decade, the woman he married and raised his daughter with isn't Emma. Emma doesn't exist. His wife is a stranger, and he doesn't even know her real name. He only found out by chance; when she got sick he started to write about her, about her life, but even his job as an obituary writer couldn't prepare him for trying to write about someone like Emma.

His digging didn't just bring up dirt, it brought up something worse - little loose threads in her life that began to unravel. And now Emma needs to try and prove to her husband that despite all the secrets, he is the love of her life. But do that, she'll finally have to reveal who she really was, and the love of her former life.

"It's only when something's damaged beyond repair that we realise how beautiful it was."

The double narration made this such a delight to listen to, really creating a unique, distinct voice for each character and really adding to the emotion and experience of the characters.

A simply stunning tale about love, loss and life - a story where nothing is as it seems, and the line between good and bad blurs depending on which way you're looking and who's talking. There was a spellbinding sense of mystery and intrigue, not in the end-of-the-world way but in sense of the very worst thing that can happen in real life and can be even more heartbreakingly terrifying.

This was intensely compelling, I tore through the pages desperate to find out what Emma was hiding and just what events could've made her leave an entire life behind her. Told from the perspective of Emma and Leo, each of them had such uniquely strong voices - they jump between the revelations happening now and the memories of their joint and separate pasts, creating a vivid picture of their lives naturally.

The Love of my Life takes the reader to the darkest, most desperate parts of the human condition and tries to search for the beauty of redemption in whichever form it takes.

"Like a solo traveller in the arrivals hall of an airport; that absurd hope we hold, as humans, that we're not alone, even when all the evidence tells us we are."

THE LOVE OF MY LIFE by ROSIE WALSH.

This is the second book that i’ve read by Rosie Walsh. The first being The Man Who Never Called, which took me a bit of getting into, but i’m so glad I stuck with it because it was a stunning book.
So, did The Love Of My Life
live up to it’s predecessor?
Well yes indeedy it flippin well did!

Emma is a successful marine biologist, with a brief tv career behind her. She is madly in love with and happily married to Leo, an obituary writer.
They share a three year old daughter and a rescue dog. Together they all live squeezed into the small cottage that Emma inherited from her Grandmother.
Their happy life is shadowed by Emma’s battle with cancer. As she waits to hear if she is in remission, Leo is asked to write his own wife’s obituary… just incase.
As Leo begins to dig into Emma’s past, a whole can of worms is opened and he soon realises that his adored wife is not who he thought she was and their life together is built on lies.

If they were told for good reasons, can lies be forgiven?

This is a story of love, devotion, heartbreak and deceit.
There are some endearing characters and a couple that quite frankly you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.
Emma and Leo are just adorable, and I whole heartedly wished for them to find their happy ever after.

This story starts gently, and the suspense builds slowly. By part two the twists and turns are coming along thick and fast. I didn’t guess where the book was heading, but it was a real page turner right to the end.

This is one of those books that will stay with me. It’s beautifully written, emotional, shocking and even manages a sprinkling of humour.
An outstanding 5 stars from me.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Excellent narration by Imogen Church and Theo Solomon.

With thanks to #Netgalley and #MacmillanUkAudio for an audio arc of #TheLoveOfMyLife by #RosieWalsh.

When I saw this book on NetGalley I knew I would want to read it after loving The Man Who Didn’t Call. Some books that I listen to on audio I wished I could have read with my eyes and this book was one of them. Told in two points of view Leo and Emma which I really liked. I absolutely loved Leo and his narration throughout the story, Emma for some reason I wasn’t so sure of.
It kept my attention throughout and I loved the little twists and turns that came further on into the story too that I wasn’t expecting.
I did find a few parts of the story unbelievable with Leo finding out information that Emma had hidden throughout their marriage but it didn’t take anything away while reading it.

I was so excited to listen to this next book from Rosie Walsh, author of ‘The Man Who Didn’t Call’ (also a great book) and this didn’t disappoint at all. What a gripping story, full of twists and turns. It kept me guessing right to the last minute and as an avid thriller/mystery reader I am usually pretty good at guessing what will happen.

Emma and Leo are very much in love and have a daughter, Ruby, who is their whole world, but is everything as it seems? What seems to be a perfect family starts to unravel in front of Leo’s eyes as Emma starts acting strangely and Leo starts to think that maybe his wife isn’t who he thinks she is…. What is Emma hiding? It’s certainly not what you’d think.

I would highly recommend this, it’s fast paced, unexpected and really emotional. It was great to listen to as an audiobook, I loved the narrators and it translated well but I also think it would be brilliant in print.

**Listened to audio book and read along via kindle**

I really struggled with this book. I have a lot of respect for Rosie Walsh and her writing, but I just didn't connect with this book on any level.
The audio book was confusing, and the narrator didn't do a good enough job with changing up for different characters.
The physical book was just too slow, and even though the pay-off was decent - I didn't appreciate the slow burn at the start. Just didn't get me hooked and gripped early enough.