Coffee Break & Book

Get yourself a cuppa, pull up a chair, and take a short break.  Enjoy this book review of :

 

With or Without You by Carole Matthews

 

I guess at sometime or other in everyone’s lives we all have something that smacks us in the face – a tragedy, a death, an illness or a relationship breakdown.  Life is full of disappointments as well as pleasures.

 

These times of stark shocks serve to stop us in our tracks, get us out of a rut, make us make a ‘U’ turn or simply examine who we are, what we are doing and where we are going.  The immediacy of being without a choice to change sends us in a spin.  We act according to the ‘fight’ or ‘flight’ affect of the situation.

 

In this book the protagonist does both – she takes flight, runs away from all she has known and wanted and fights for her survival through the shadow of loss, hurt and devastating disappointment.  It is as real as anyone’s account of turning a loss into a gain, overcoming the damned cards dealt her and finding ‘herself’ amidst a group of strangers.

 

IVF can take its toll on any couple and Lyssa and Jake are no exception.  It drains them of energy, passion, vigour for their jobs, finances and lust for life outside of the baby-making zone.  They separate – time out seemed the only option to cope with the overwhelming situation of infertility.  Other people enter their lives.  Jake moves in with a female work colleague and Lyssa is befriended by her American tour guide in the mountains of Nepal. 

The scenes of trekking up mountains, smiling children and forest villages is very lively and colourful.  One cannot fail to 'be there' in the story.

 

After Lyssa's holiday the word CHANGE figures out of her CHAlleNGE and eventually she follows her heart.  The ending is magical, uplifting and if you are a sentimentalist like me, a real tear jerker.

 

Well done Carole Matthews on yet another fabulous novel.  Five Star Recommendation.