Hello friends! Today I’m taking part in the book tour for Life After You by Sian O’Gorman – a heartwarming tale about overcoming adversity. Perfect for any lover of Women’s Fiction.
Summary
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Publication Date: 15th September 2020
‘What if the one you’ve lost, is the one person you need to find? Milly Bryne’s world came crashing down when she lost her beloved Dad and boyfriend in a matter of weeks.
Losing her Dad has broken her family. Losing her soul mate made has made her give up on life and love.
After swerving from stability to chaos to despair, Milly finally believes she has her life back on track when the unexpected return of a familiar face to Ireland throws her life once more into a spin.
Milly is forced to decide if her new life is the one for her, or if there is another path that will bring even greater riches of joy, excitement and fun into her world.
Life just isn’t worth living if your heart isn’t in it?’ – Goodreads
Thank you to NetGalley, Boldwood Books and Rachel’s Random Resources for an ARC of this lovely book!
Review
Meet Milly – she’s a corporate lawyer, struggling with the loss of her father five years earlier. Her work environment is incredibly patriarchal, and she finds an unlikely friendship in her ‘Capricorn’ co-worker, Catriona. Along with the help of her best friend, Siobhán, Life After You follows Milly’s journey to overcoming grief and terrible boyfriends in an enjoyable and sweet read.
This book is full of good stuff – there’s a lot of discussion of mental health, which I found to be touched upon very gently and respectfully. The frequent descriptions of anxiety and panic attacks were surprisingly accurate, and I found it helpful to read of someone going through the same experiences that I have. I wasn’t expecting this going into reading the novel, but I wholly appreciate it.
I also found O’Gorman’s humour to be delightful to read. Although Milly’s boyfriend and his overcontrolling mum are admittedly vile characters who attempt to buy Milly’s love with money, O’Gorman writes about them in such a way that has you laughing at their ridiculousness, rather than hating them. This balances out the seriousness of the topics of mental health covered, which I loved.
Another great thing about this book is the sheer level of detail O’Gorman manages to pack into it. Although Milly is our protagonist, the other characters are all fully fleshed out in a lifelike way that makes you feel as though you’re living in Ireland with Milly.
This is a wonderful and surprisingly touching read – lighthearted and meaningful at the same time, I recommend it to anyone who loves Women’s Fiction.
About the Author
Sian O’Gorman was born in Galway on the West Coast of Ireland, grew up in the lovely city of Cardiff, and has found her way back to Ireland and now lives on the east of the country, in the village of Dalkey, just along the coast from Dublin. She works as a radio producer for RTE.
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Bookbub | Mailing List
Purchase Links: Amazon UK
Great review! I love that all the mental health stuff seems to be written really well. There definitely has to be more of that in books.
Thank you! Definitely, I completely agree 🙂