This Disaster Loves You by Richard Roper – a Review

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Description:
A story about a man whose wife disappeared seven years ago and his journey to find her or find out what happened, interwoven with the story of their relationship, revealing how sometimes the biggest secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.

Twenty years of love. Seven years of absence. One journey to find out what happened.

Brian’s wife, Lily, disappeared from his life without a trace six years, eleven months, one week, and two days ago, but Brian never lost hope. Since her disappearance their once beloved English pub—and Brian’s livelihood—has been crumbling piece by piece. As the anniversary of her absence approaches, Brian desperately needs a sign. One doom-scroll on his business’s reviews later, he finds an active TripAdvisor account for PinkMoonLily1972 that he knows in his heart is his Lily.

Interspliced with Brian’s journey to find Lily is the story of their love—how it started, and the twists and turns that brought them to this moment. As Brian jumps from one destination to the next to find Lily, and the truth behind their story comes into focus, Brian comes back to life with the help of Tess, a sarcastic, kind, and surprising traveling companion. But in order to move forward he’ll need to decide—stay in the past or take a chance on something unexpected.

Review:

This Disaster Loves You by Richard Roper is a story of love, hope and tragedy. The story follows Brian, whose wife disappeared 7 years ago, leaving a postcard that she will be back, but needed some space for a while. Each morning, Brian, who owns a pub, watches the door to see if Lily is returning, never giving up hope.   The story does alternate between the past, when he and Lily fell in love, married, opened the pub, living 20 years through life; and the present, with Brian sees a review on Pinkmoonlil1972, and is determined to find his wife.

Brian’s friend Jeff, is a regular, and he tells his friend he needs to find Lily, but before he leaves, he worries why his friend isn’t at the pub, and goes to his house, where he finds Jeff dead. Heartbroken, but still determined to go on his journey, he puts two young bar workers, Oliver and Sophie, in charge.

The many scenes from the past, gives us details about Brian falling in love with Lily; as well as her falling for him, their marriage, unable to have children, opening up their pub, and family issues along the way. In the present, Brian’s journey leads him to various destinations where Lily might be, with each encounter unsuccessful. He meets Tess, a charming woman from New Zealand, who become friends, and she helping him in his search to find Lily. The final destination has Brian finally meeting PinkMoonLily1972, who turns out not to be his Lily.  He returns home to the pub, and knows he will have to close the pub, with serious financial situations.  Tess ends up visiting Brian for a while, with her eventually going back to New Zealand. Then to his surprise, he learns that Jeff, his deceased friend left him in his will an enormous amount of money, allowing him to renovate the pub. A surprise twist at the end, was a video that shows Lily on the morning she disappeared, in a major storm, and the truths were revealed.

This Disaster Loves You was a very good story line, filled with love, loss, tragedy, family and friendship. This Disaster Loves You was very well written by Richard Roper.  I wholly suggest you read this book.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher