I cannot thank Lovereading enough for a copy of The Day I Lost You by Fionnuala Kearney in return for an honest review. The Day I Lost You is available in ebook now and is available for purchase on Amazon. It will be published in paperback by Harper Collins on 22nd September 2016 . The Day I Lost You is available to order from Lovereading, Waterstones, W H Smith and Foyles.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading You, Me and Other People, Fionnuala Kearney’s debut, last year and you can find my review here. You Me and Other People is available for purchase here.

The Day I Lost You

THE DAY I LOST YOU WAS THE DAY I DISCOVERED I NEVER REALLY KNEW YOU

When Jess’s daughter, Anna, is reported lost in an avalanche, everything changes.

Jess’s first instinct is to protect Rose, Anna’s five-year-old daughter. But then she starts to uncover Anna’s other life – unearthing a secret that alters their whole world irrevocably.

THE DAY I LOST YOU WAS THE DAY YOU TORE OUR FAMILY APART

My Review of The Day I Lost You

When Jess’s daughter Anna is missing, feared dead, in an avalanche during a skiing holiday Jess thinks the worst has happened. She’s wrong. Things are going to get much, much worse.

Oh dear. I honestly don’t think I am going to recover from reading The Day I Lost You. My heart was broken within a few pages and I basically sobbed my way through the rest of the story. This is such an emotional read. Given that the premise is based on mother and child relationships and I have no maternal feeling at all, Fionnuala Kearney has managed to reduce me to an emotional wreck which just goes to show the power of the writing.

The warmth and understanding of relationships that I found in Fionnuala’s debut You, Me and Other People, are still there but I think her ability to craft a text has become much more sophisticated so that there is not a word out of place. The effect is that the emotional pull is almost overwhelming.

The characterisation is outstanding. Anna is the lynch pin to the plot, and we get to know her at the same time as the rest of the characters, including those who thought they knew her best, so that we feel we are a part of the story. I empathised with Jess completely and mirrored her suspicions as the story went on. Even the most minor characters, including Pug, feel real and human. When I got to the end of the book I felt bereft. I need to know more about what happens to them in the future. They’ve almost become part of my life.

But what is so clever about The Day I Lost You is that whilst it is the most perfect embodiment of raw grief and unconditional love, it is also a compelling mystery from wondering what happened to Anna in the avalanche, given her body hasn’t been found, to several more aspects that I can’t write about for fear of spoiling the plot. This isn’t a thriller, but at times I felt the same sensation in my stomach as you get when going over a fast drop. Just when I thought I knew Anna as much as Jess did, something else pulled that truth away so that I had to read more.

I think what made The Day I Lost You such a perfect read for me is that it is about us. It is about all the frailties, the imperfections, the emotions that make us who we are. I loved it – every word.

You can read reviews from other Love Reading readers here.

About Fionnuala Kearney

Fionnuala is pronounced “Finoola”. Fionnuala Kearney is Irish, living just outside London and hugely proud to say she’s a writer.

You’ll find Fionnuala on Facebook or on Twitter and you can visit her website.