Posted on  20/08/2024 15:51:22

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"You can live your life to please others and never be totally alive, or you can please yourself." And always always always... make a decision with your heart.

Discovering her husband, Guido, in bed with another woman, Moira Capaldi finally realizes her married life had become a loveless routine based only on comfort and convenience, with no feelings involved and no actual happiness in it. So she decides to take a leap of faith, cut all connections with a loveless existence and follow her dreams.

But reaching a decision is a lot easier than following it through, especially when you are already closing on 40 and are used to a comfortable life in an expensive apartment and a well paid respected job. It takes a lot of courage and determination to give everything up and start anew in a completely different place and with lots of obstacles awaiting on your journey. From financial status to tedious bureaucracy, Moira has to face a lot of challenges to relocate from Sydney, Australia, to West Gidding, a village near London, in England to follow her passion of art, and to develop her painting skills.

And this is where Moira's story shines because it could easily be the story of any woman next door. It feel real and leaps of the pages. From the difficulty and reluctance to let go of the known and embrace chance and the unknown, to the problems she faces in her daily life while embracing the extreme changes in her fortune and dealing with them in an absolutely mature manner; everything is downright lifelike and feels real!

An easy light read that genuinely displays the married life of couples that become estranged over time, Moira's story seems an authentic example of what may happen if a mature woman looks inside her heart and takes a decision to please herself, then makes use of her brain to follow it through.

However, to me it felt a little bit unfinished. A few exciting supernatural elements introduced into the story in the little village in England, an ugly relationships from the past of a side character that actually grew on me, as well as the lack of proper punishment for a quite violent attack followed by the news of an engagement with a "best friend?!" were left with no proper conclusion and they gave the overall story a sort of unfinished feel.

Regardless, it was a light and enjoyable read, perfectly suitable for a mature audience who enjoys romances with an authentic feel.

Check out this book and more of Barbara M. Webb on www.barbaramwebb.com