Like I Can Love

Kim Lock

Pan Macmillan Australia

ISBN: 9781743538630

 

Description:

On a hot January afternoon, Fairlie Winter receives a phone call. Her best friend has just taken her own life.

 

Jenna Rudolph, 26 years old, has left behind a devoted husband, an adorable young son and a stunning vineyard. But Fairlie knows she should have seen this coming.

 

Yet Fairlie doesn’t know what Jenna’s husband Ark is hiding, nor does she know what Jenna’s mother Evelyn did to drive mother and daughter apart all those years ago.

 

Until Fairlie opens her mail and finds a letter. In Jenna’s handwriting. Along with a key.

 

Driven to search for answers, Fairlie uncovers a horrifying past, a desperate mother, and a devastating secret kept by those she loves the most.

 

Heartbreaking and terrifying, Like I Can Love explores love in all its forms – from the most fragile to the most dangerous – and the unthinkable things we do in its name.

 

 

 

My View:

One of the hardest things to do is to review a book you really love without spoilers!  I loved this book!!!

 

This is a book that will pierce no rip out your heart. It is a book that will have you air pumping shouting YES YES YES I GET IT!   I sincerely hope you do to because that is what we need – more people to understand this issue. (No spoilers here).

 

So maybe I had better try and articulate my feelings about this book – for it is a book about feelings – and whilst the title may allude to a rosy happy ever after love story – this isn’t. Yet this is a story about love, about relationships; about best friends for ever love, about mothers and daughters, men and women, husbands and wives and soul mates, and children and other stuff that will remain nameless until you to have read the book.

 

It is also a story of manipulation, intimidation, greed and control and…love.  The psychological suspense is palpable.  The opening begins with Fairlie’s ordinary day imploding after receiving a call to advise her that her best friend has just committed suicide.  What a great opening hook – now we want to know the how, where and why. The why is oh so important!  And slowly a three dimensional picture is revealed.

 

This is domestic noir at its very best. This book stands proudly next to my favourite book Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes. It is not as violent as Elizabeth Haynes’s book but it is as credible, and as compulsive a read and as shocking a read as Into the Darkest Corner.  I don’t think I can give a book any higher praise.

 

Read this and have your eyes opened. Read this and understand. Read this and be consumed by the emotions that you cannot hold back. Just read it!

 

PS I can predict an award or two in the future for this book and writer.