The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh – a Review

Amazon / B&N / Kobo / Google Play / Apple / BAM / Book Depository

Description:
Emma was quite certain she’d never fall in love again. But then she met an obituary writer, Leo, and within months, they were engaged. Seven years later came Ruby, their daughter, and then John Keats, their rescue dog. Now Emma, a marine biologist, has her perfect little ecosystem. They are happy, crammed into the tiny house her grandmother left her.
Leo was adopted as a baby, and this noisy, joyous little family is the first place he has ever felt he belongs. In fact, everything would be just perfect if Emma was who she said she was. If Emma was even her real name . . .

Because of Emma’s preeminence in her field, Leo is asked to write his own wife’s obituary while she is still alive. That’s when he finds that the woman he thinks he knows doesn’t really exist. As Leo starts to unravel the truth about the stranger in his bed, Emma’s old life breaks out of the carefully cultivated shell she created, threatening to wash away everything she has worked so hard to build.
When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was.
But first, she must tell him about the love of her other life.

Review:

The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh is a standalone novel.  This story revolves around Emma, our heroine, who is a marine biologist; she is happily married to Leo, our hero, who is an obituary writer and they have a baby girl, Ruby.  Emma has lymphoma, and is waiting to see the results after her treatments were completed.  At work, Leo secretly begins to do a draft of Emma’s stock obituary as a tribute, knowing he must face her mortality; which was his therapeutic way of dealing with her possible death.   

As Leo delves into her life, he begins to find things in the past that do not add up. Even though the results of her blood work were positive, and happy news; he starts investigating things Emma has told him about her life before they married, and learns quickly that she has lied about many things over the years, including her real name.  When he starts looking in their house for papers that may give him clues, Emma notices the Leo is searching for papers, and worries that everything she hid of her past is slowly falling apart.

I will say that the first third of the book was slow, with details that we didn’t understand, until closer to the end.  However, in part two, which is a 20-year flash back to Emma’s (Emily) younger days, we learn more about what she went through, and why she hid things.  The trauma she suffered, which she fully remembers, and still bears responsibility for those horrifying things of the past, which she shares fully with her best friend, Jill (who is also part of the present).  Another couple played a big part in Emily’s life, which comes out in the present time.

In the present time, Leo begins to discover the truths, as he goes out of his way to meet those people that Emma knew before she met him, and slowly he learns more about the woman he loves.  Emma will try to reason with him, without giving too much information, but a number of twists will change things, and Emma will learn more about the hidden truths that she never knew.

The Love of My Life was an interesting story, that had many twists and turns, which in the last third of the book, we saw all the pieces falling into place. When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past emerge, she will step up and prove that despite those lies, she proves that she still loves Leo, who is the love of her life. Will Leo forgive Emma? The Love of My Life was very well written by Rosie Walsh.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher