I so enjoyed Jackie Frasers’ The Bookshop of Second Chances, reviewed here, that when the amazing Sara-Jade Virtue offered me the opportunity to be part of the blog tour for Jackie’s new book, The Beginning of Everything, I was thrilled. It’s a real privilege to share my review on publication day.

Published by Simon and Schuster today, 28th September 2023, The Beginning of Everything is available for purchase through the link here.

The Beginning of Everything

For fans of The Keeper of Stories, The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes and A Thousand Roads Home, The Beginning of Everything is the story of Jess and Gethin, whose paths cross in the most unexpected way.

Jess is running, leaving all she knows and everyone she loves behind her, with just a few treasured belongings in her rucksack. She’s escaping from the pain and trauma of a bad relationship with a bad man, gone very badly wrong.

Gethin’s kindness and care takes her breath away. They become friends.

But with so much hurt in her past, can Jess learn to love and live again?

My Review of The Beginning of Everything

Jess is living in a tent.

The Beginning of Everything is just fabulous. Steeped in humanity, understanding and friendship The Beginning of Everything is a book not just to entertain, but to restore one’s faith in other people. I thought it was brilliant.

The plot is relatively uneventful because much of the drama has already happened before Jess reaches Wales. This technique is so effective, because very often when we meet a new person, as Jess and Gethin do, we have absolutely no concept of what may be in their past, what they might have endured and how circumstances have brought them to this point in their lives. What Jackie Fraser does so poignantly is to illustrate that we can escape our past, we can start again and that trust is possible. What happens in The Beginning of Everything is a gradual unfolding of friendship that is authentic, emotional and affecting. Jackie Fraser made me feel everything that Jess feels – not least because the narrative style is as if Jess is addressing the reader directly.

There’s an intimacy created through the fact that much of the book has a focus entirely on Jess and Gethin. I loved the fact that Gethin is a straightforward, open character rather than a brooding hero whose façade Jess needs to penetrate before they can be friends or potentially more than friends. This had the effect of letting me see right inside their minds and allowing me a real insight into who they are as people. And people is the correct word. No characters here, but rather rounded, authentic and vivid people who leap from the page and whom I felt I had had as friends for years.

However, alongside the gentler aspects of The Beginning of Everything, as Jess and Gethin get to know one another, Jackie Fraser subtly and effectively weaves in much bigger themes and aspects of modern life and society that make the book profound as well as a gorgeously entertaining read. She considers abusive relationships, homelessness, the impact of losing everything and starting life again, and the way life can turn suddenly and a person can lose everything. I especially loved her exploration of materialism and what it is that makes for true happiness.

I’m aware this review feels slightly vague, but it’s hard to convey the way it moved me without spoiling the story for others. What more can I say about The Beginning of Everything? It’s a wonderful book that I absolutely adored and won’t forget in a hurry. Read it.

About Jackie Fraser

Jackie Fraser is a freelance editor and writer. She’s worked for AA Publishing, Watkins, the Good Food Guide, and various self-published writers of fiction, travel and food guides, recipe books and self-help books since 2012. Prior to that, she worked as an editor of food and accommodation guides for the AA, including the B&B Guide, Restaurant Guide, and Pub Guide for nearly twenty years, eventually running the Lifestyle Guides department.

She’s interested in all kind of things, particularly history, (and prehistory) art, food, popular culture and music.

She reads a lot, (no, really) in multiple genres, and is fascinated by the Bronze Age. She likes vintage clothes, antique fairs, and photography. She used to be a bit of a goth. She likes cats.

You can follow Jackie on Twitter @muninnherself and Instagram. You’ll find Jackie on Facebook.

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