Can you future be affected by your past?

Synopsis

Can the future be rewritten?

On the verge of her second marriage, Carla Carter knows she’s finally found the one. She and her fiancé, Tom, met through Logical Love, a dating agency she founded for the pragmatically minded, and she’s confident that, together, they will dispel an old family curse claiming Carter women are unlucky in love.

But Carla’s highly superstitious family insists she visit a fortune teller before her big day, and the tarot cards reveal that a different man holds the key to Carla’s happiness – someone she met while travelling during a gap year, twenty-one years ago. This startling information spurs Carla to trace and revisit the ex-boyfriends she met during that time before she walks down the aisle.

From Barcelona to Amsterdam, Turkey to Paris, will Carla find her perfect match? And can a face from her past help Carla rewrite her entire family history, forever?

My review

Carla Carter truly believes that with her second marriage, she has found the love of her life. Especially as she met Tom when they matched on Logical Love, the dating agency she created herself, focused on the pragmatic side of things.
That is in big contrast with her own family, that believes that the family is cursed, and that all the Carter women are unlucky in love. And that is something that Carla doesn’t believe at all.
To please her family, Carla agrees to visit a fortune teller before her marriage. Only to be shocked with the revelation that the love of her life is someone she met during her gap year twenty – one years ago. While Tom himself is on a convention, Carla decides to track down all the men she met during that year, as an attempt to prove the fortune teller wrong.
So she embarks on a journey, going from Spain, through Portugal, Italy and France, to discover what the fortune teller truly meant. But what will be the outcome?

I started this book not knowing what to expect. Of course I’ve read the blurb, and while on one hand I was intrigued by the fact that the main character would be looking for her exes throughout Europe before her own wedding, I was wary of the fortune teller bits. Because that is absolutely not my cup of tea at all. Everyone is free to believe whatever they want, but for such things, I am always very skeptical.

But I was happy reading that in fact that the fortune telling isn’t a that big part of the story, it’s more the ‘excuse’ of Carla starting her journey. I was also happy to read how the curse – bit was intriguing but not claiming a full place in the spotlight.

While most of the time I like Carla, there were also moments that I found her a bit too “strict”. Yes, she created her dating agency, making matches based on facts. And after the fortune – teller and a shocking discovery, she suddenly doubts everything. I can understand how it would shock her, but to start doubting her match? Yes, the match was made perhaps with an error, but it doesn’t take away the fact that she is in love with Tom… so why would she want to jeopardize everything because of someone told her and a percentage? Isn’t it that love cannot be stopped, no matter the differences or the inference of others?

But isn’t it also the truth that we often wonder ‘what if…’? And I enjoyed reading how Carla makes it her mission to find all the men she met during her gap year. Not only does she take us to wonderful places, but revisiting those places of the past, we also get a better understanding of Carla, who she is, who she was in the past, what she has been going through and what may have scarred her.

No relationship was or is perfect, and we see that perfectly here, how we some things see through rose – colored glasses. But isn’t it a fact that past events are being romanticized in our minds? And that when something bad happens, even in the present, sometimes we see it as a world – ending tragedy?

I liked in this book how it came to a conclusion, how the author didn’t take a direction I wouldn’t like. Instead she made Carla go on a real journey, a journey that answers many of her questions and brings unexpected people on her path…

And I also liked how the whole curse – thing was handled, how something apparently bad isn’t always exactly what the characters of the book think it is.

I enjoyed reading this book, as there is a lot of growth for the main character, a lot of (self) – discovery but mainly a lot of love, and the realization that with love can come some hurt and doubt with it. But in the end, love, somehow, will always find a way…