Review : The Idea of You by Amanda Prowse

The Very Pink Notebook is thrilled to present
The Idea of You by Amanda Prowse
Review on publication day. 
With thanks to the author for an ARC of the book.

Published by : Lake Union

21 March 2017

Copy : Paperback - Received from Author

The Blurb

With her fortieth birthday approaching, Lucy Carpenter dares to hope that she finally has it all: a wonderful new husband, Jonah, a successful career and the chance of a precious baby of her own. Life couldn’t be more perfect.

But the reality of becoming parents proves much harder than Lucy and Jonah imagined. Jonah’s love and support is unquestioning, but as Lucy struggles with work and her own failing dreams, the strain on their marriage increases. Suddenly it feels like Lucy is close to losing everything…

Heart-wrenching and poignant, this latest work by bestselling author Amanda Prowse asks the question: what does it mean to be a mother in today’s hectic world? And what if it’s asking too much to want it all?

The Very Pink Notebook Review

The Idea of You is yet another poignant and moving novel from best seller Amanda Prowse.  The beauty of this author's writing is that is so very real.  Amanda has a knack of taking an issue and pin-pointing the beating heart of it, she then writes a true and heart-rending novel around it.

This book is another case in point.  Motherhood.  This is something many people are able to take for granted.  They try for a baby, have a good pregnancy, have the baby and off they are on the road of parenthood.  But Amanda stops, with The Idea of You, to look at those not so lucky, the one's who can't just go through the natural course and rhythm of conceiving, carrying and delivering a child.  She unravels the emotional upheaval this can create, the distress and misery grief can cause when one hope after another is dashed and how this can filter out and tarnish every inch of life. 

Protagonist Lucy is in an emotional minefield throughout the course of the book.  Her longing for a child with husband Jonah threatens to overrule everything, as her heartache and sorrow of not being able to successfully carry a child becomes ever more the reality of her world.  On top of this she undertakes a stressful job, having been highly successful within her career and is trying to cope with her new role as a step-mother to a teenager girl who has issues of her own.  As a main character I did not overly warm to Lucy, but that is hardly surprising given how strung out the poor women is.  Sometimes she seems tightly wound, and that is because she is, for good reason.  Amanda has skilfully and very realistically managed to demonstrate how very good relationships can fall apart over, what may seem trivial things, but that are huge if not discussed, or if the people trying to deal with them are already so emotionally stretched they can't see the wood through the trees.  If communication breaks down, then nothing works.

This novel, sensitively written, looks at the issue of motherhood in full circle, which I really enjoyed.  Although told from the point of view of Lucy, the author has cleverly dealt with all aspects of motherhood throughout the other characters in the book with each mother in the book representing a different aspect or dilemma.  I always enjoy the pace and fluidity of this novelists work, it makes her books so easy to read and digest even though they are very often dealing with controversial and emotional subjects.

Never to be disappointed with a new novel by Amanda Prowse, The Idea of You receives a highly recommend Very Pink Notebook rating of :

Blog Tour and Review : The Food of Love by Amanda Prowse

The Very Pink Notebook is overwhelmingly thrilled to be part of Amanda Prowse's, 

The Food of Love, blog tour this week.  With much thanks to Amanda for involving me in the tour and for a copy of the book.

Published by - Lake Union Publishing

1 December 2016

Copy - ARC copy received from author

The Blurb

A loving mother. A perfect family. A shock wave that could shatter everything.

Freya Braithwaite knows she is lucky. Nineteen years of marriage to a man who still warms her soul and two beautiful teenage daughters to show for it: confident Charlotte and thoughtful Lexi. Her home is filled with love and laughter.

But when Lexi’s struggles with weight take control of her life, everything Freya once took for granted falls apart, leaving the whole family with a sense of helplessness that can only be confronted with understanding, unity and, above all, love.

In this compelling and heart-wrenching new work by bestselling author Amanda Prowse, one ordinary family tackles unexpected difficulties and discovers that love can find its way through life’s darkest moments.

The Very Pink Notebook Review

It is a lovely thing, to be asked to review a book, but when the author is one of your long time favourites it becomes quite an event.  For me, being asked to be involved in Amanda Prowse's blog tour for The Food of Love, is one of those times.

Often reviewers will say they felt a little anxious at the start of a favourite authors new book, what if it isn't as good as those that have gone before it?  I had no such concerns with this book, just from the blurb I could tell that Amanda had honed in on yet another harrowing topic, which she would raise awareness of by her tried and tested successful format of writing a novel about a women's fight for her family.

The particular fight for the protagonist in this novel, Freya, is against the illness that blights her youngest daughter, Lexi.  Anorexia.  This is not an easy book to read, there is no light-hearted streak running through it, there is no miraculous or unrealistic resolutions, it is full on with emotion and heart-ache and anguish.  But it is brilliant.  The characters are so fully formed and developed your heart feels heavy for them and you find yourself rooting for them to just stay strong, to stick together. 

For me, this book was a real eye opener.  You know the author has thoroughly researched the subject matter and novel gives a realistic impression of life for those where anorexia permeates every waking (and sleeping) moment.  It shows how long term the illness is, how hard it is to find the crux and core to it, which without knowing makes it almost impossible to start to fight it.  Although written from the view point of Freya, the mother I felt I got a really full insight into how it affected all the main characters, Lexi herself, her father, Lockie, and sister Charlotte.  The scene that made me break the barriers and shed a tear was a very moving, but simple gesture between the two sisters. 

The format Amanda has used keeps the story moving along at a good pace and, as always, the narrative and dialogue is fluent and easy to read, making the book extremely hard to put down.  It didn't quite go where I thought it was going to go when I first started reading which was a lovely surprise.

Amanda Prowse says herself, she has found her talent and that is being able to write books, very quickly.  And knowing how frequently she publishes it always amazes me just how deep and developed the characters are and how detailed and well researched the plot is for the timescale she must give herself to work to.  This book is another example of how well this is done by this author.

The last thing for me to say isn't actually to do with the plot, but I feel it deserves mention so no one misses it :   READ THE AUTHORS NOTE.   

The Food of Love of course gets a Very Pink Notebook rating of :

     

About the Author

Amanda Prowse is a bestselling novelist with an incredible 136K followers on Twitter. This is her sixteenth novel and her books have been translated into a dozen languages and regularly top bestseller charts all over the world. Amanda has been dubbed ‘The Queen of Domestic Drama’ and writes about ordinary women and their families who find their strength, courage and love tested in ways they never imagined.

Through writing The Food of Love, Amanda has come face to face with her own feelings of shame, secrecy and obsession with food. Overweight as a child and a yo-yo dieter as an adult, Amanda has struggled with body image and overeating all her life.

She now recognizes that the habits of her once anorexic mother had a profound effect on her growing up. By writing about eating disorders in The Food of Love, Amanda has faced her own food demons and has made incredible steps to correcting her unhealthy relationship with food. Since she started writing the book, Amanda has lost one and a half stone and aims to reach her target, healthy weight by 1^st December, the publication date of The Food of Love.

Follow the Tour

The tour continues tomorrow so I am passing the baton on to www.karensworld-writer.co.uk

Publication Day - The Food of Love by Amanda Prowse

The Very Pink Notebook is thrilled to congratulate Amanda Prowse on her publication day.  The new, emotional book, The Food of Love, is out now.

The blog tour kicks off today and will run throughout December :

COMING SOON : Blog Tour and Review - The Food of Love by Amanda Prowse