Love doesn’t come easy…

Synopsis

Lottie’s relationship with Greg ends when he leaves her for Emma, a decision that links their lives in ways neither woman could foresee. 

Emma traps Greg into marriage when she becomes pregnant. Later, a one-night stand leaves Lottie carrying Greg’s child, forcing them into an uneasy co-parenting arrangement. 

As both women navigate their complicated ties, they build an uneasy alliance. And when Lottie faces the ultimate challenge, she is forced to ask Emma for help. Can two women who once loathed each other come together during a dark time? 

Poignant, heart-wrenching, and hopeful, this is a tale of resilience and the power of unexpected connections. 

My review

Lottie is happy with her relationship with Greg, as she truly believes she has found The One. Until Greg falls in love with Emma and believes that his future is with her… Lottie is heartbroken and finds it difficult to move on and finds herself in a downward spiral. However, Emma feels that she is losing Greg, and to make sure that she doesn’t lose the man she loves, intentionally gets pregnant, which forces Greg to marry Emma. But as Lottie and Greg have been together for so long,  their lives are entwined, and as they have the same friends, they keep on seeing each other on several occasions; making it difficult for Lottie to truly get over Greg, and for Emma to get over her jealousy… But over the course of time, both women, once enemies, are forced to work together, as Life isn’t making things easy for either of them…

Life never goes as expected, and that is for sure something Lottie learns on her journey.

It must be devasting to see how the man you love, leaves you for another woman. However, when in most cases, you are able to severe all ties with your ex, as Lottie and Greg have been together for a long time, her friends are his friends and the other way around. So how haunting can it be, when you are forced to not only keep on seeing the man that broke your heart, but also seeing him happy with another woman?

I could understand that Lottie finds it hard to move on, as she is constantly faced with what she lost. But I have to admit, that I never did warm towards Greg. He seems like the guy that wants to have it all, without having to face responsibility of his actions.

Yes, of course, when Emma falls pregnant, he does the right thing by marrying her. But he doesn’t do it because of his love for Emma, more out of duty, as he doesn’t want his child to go through the same as he did.

His inability of letting Lottie go, makes Lottie make decisions that I could comprehend in one way, but I didn’t agree with them. There are lines in my opinion that cannot be crossed, yet in this book, they are crossed… But at least Lottie knows that what she is doing, is wrong…

I have to say, that the blurb of the book gives away a lot. Because I was expecting Lottie’s pregnancy earlier in the book, while in fact it takes a long time, even years pass, before it happens. And the same can be said of her diagnose.

This book in fact, is the long journey that Lottie is going through. And not a journey over days, weeks or months, but in fact over years. We see not only how she gets over her heartbreak, or how she is making mistakes, but also how she is standing up again, learning from her mistakes, starts to trust again.

We also see how relationships change, and how in some cases they even stay the same. Not only the relationship with Greg changes at the start of the book, but also the relationship between Lottie and her friends change. Not that there is a falling out, but life take them in different directions, no path is the same. Yet it was heartwarming to see how their friendship stands against every test that Life throws them.

In this book, we don’t only see Lottie’s story, but also Emma’s. And just like Greg, I didn’t like her from the start. Especially when there is the tricking part, I just couldn’t understand Emma’s desperation. But on the other hand, love make us do crazy things, doesn’t it?

While it makes sense and is more than understanding that Lottie and Emma initially are enemies, I liked reading how over time, even their relationship shifts. Because of the made decisions, their lives are and will forever be entwined, and both women, over the years are trying to make their awkward situation work.

So while Lottie’s life has many ups and downs, where hope rises and falls, we see how she can rely on her loyal friends and even unexpected allies to get her trough her toughest of moments, over and over again.

There was a moment in this book, at another low of Lottie, where I thought that she had been through a lot already, and that it wasn’t fair of what she has to face again. But in real honestly, whenever is life truly fair?

Yet reading about Lottie’s resilience, her fights, her struggles, even her lowest moments, but also reading about the support, help and love she receives, even from unexpected corners, shows us how strong we all can be and ready to fight those battles.

This isn’t an easy journey to read through, as the author shows us how many twists there can be in our lives. But we also see how stronger we can get after each fight, and that life can be too short to wallow in misery and sorrow. And that no matter what we have been through, we should never lose hope, and always believe in love.