To Love and Be Loved: when the life you wanted isn't the life you get

To Love and Be Loved by Amanda Prowse is one woman’s journey to build a new life after she is left at the altar and becomes the talk of her Cornish fishing village. Merrin Kellow is young and desperately in love. Her new life with her fiancé is about to start when it all comes crashing down. Now desperate to avoid whispers and gossip, she leaves Port Charles, Cornwall. Leaving behind her beloved parents, her sister, Ruby and best friend, Bella. It isn’t easy staying away but she cannot bring herself to face her beloved home for fear of opening up old wounds again. When tragedy strikes, she has no choice but to return. Once back home, Merrin realizes what she has missed: her home, her family and especially the person she used to be. She is forced to make decisions about her future and confront the past she has been trying to hide. Can she learn to forgive and find true happiness? 

Amanda Prowse is known for deeply emotional dramas with a flair of hope for a better future. There are no easy answers or solutions in her books. If I had been left at the altar, I probably would have run too. Although I sympathized with Merrin on this humiliation, it was hard to like her in other areas of the stories. At times, she was very immature and even juvenile in her reactions to devastating news. But when a single moment has defined someone’s image of themselves, isn't it natural to be a bit childish? My favorite character was her older sister Ruby and the tensions between Merrin and Ruby were classic sisterly squabbles and drove into deeply personal hurts and forgiveness that only sisters can give. Overall, I enjoyed To Love and Be Loved. It is a story of when the life you thought you wanted opens to the door to the life you truly needed. I recommend To Love and Be Loved. 

To Love and Be Loved is available in paperback, eBook, and audiobook