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If only I had told her by Laura Nowlin
Book Blurb:
If only I’d told her that I loved her years ago, then I wouldn’t be here now.
Finn has always loved Autumn. She’s not just the girl next door or his mother’s best friend’s daughter, she is his everything. But she’s not his girlfriend. That’s Sylvie, and Finn would never hurt her, so there’s no way Autumn could know how he truly feels.
Jack, Finn’s best friend, isn’t so sure. He’s seen Finn and Autumn together. How could she not know? And how is he supposed to support and protect Finn when heartache seems inevitable?
Autumn surrounds herself with books and wants to write her own destiny—but one doesn’t always get a new chapter and fate can be cruel to those in love.
Told through three different perspectives, If Only I Had Told Her is a love story brimming with truth, tragedy, and unexpected bonds that heal us.
My Thoughts:
I was not prepared.
I was not prepared for the amount of sorrow I would feel for Autumn and their family and friends. For the life they should’ve had and the plans that inevitably are frozen in time.
I was not prepared for the amount of times I put myself in her shoes and imagined that kind of loss. For going from declaring undying love and passion to an abyss. I always felt that that’s the hardest thing about death – the final jarring note it strikes.
They often say we are stronger than we think and I have to believe as women God gave us a little extra strength because, he knew life would definitely try and break us. So he made our bones bend-able, pliable. He gave us more leg room in the heart division for all the days of our lives where we will need an extra shield. Autumn is wearing her shield. Except now she is not just protecting herself…
I found myself back in Missouri, USA. Standing beside Autumn as she finds a version of herself who knows how to live in this new world where everything is alien. This world where she eats old powder candy and sits in circles talking amongst 12 strangers about the biggest losses of their lives. This world where she makes ultrasound decisions and decides if the future has a crib or a shared bed. A world in which the future that’s unfolding she never saw coming. They never saw it coming. Even as Autumn painfully puts one foot in front of the other sometimes in a haze, she heals, because sometimes just getting up is winning.
It breaks my heart for what they didn’t get to do but begs the question again… would you rather cboose a lifetime of never knowing or a moment of extraordinary love?
I know what I choose and even though that choice can be painful if the worst happens. I would choose that everyday. Autumn did too. You my friend, if you don’t know, go get the book then ask yourself the question. I was not prepared for how much time and thoughts and feelings I would have for this book.
I rated it ⭐⭐⭐⭐ on Goodreads.
Well done Laura. You made me cry, made me think, made me appreciate. Thank you.t
This was gifted to me by Penquin Random House. Thank you so much.
And you, tell them. I hope you never live the regret of ‘if only…’
I think I will just sit here in gratitude.
Ciao ,
Love Cece xx -
if he had been with me by Laura Nowlin
Book Blurb :
If he had been with me everything would have been different…
I wasn’t with Finn on that August night. But I should’ve been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it’s not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial.
So let me tell you…
My Thoughts :
I was determined to not cry for anything in this book and then I started reading it while my mensies came for a monthly visit. Ha! Jokes on me. Laura why did you do that?
Why did we have to seperate like that? I’m about to start If Only I Had Told Her. I think I may be a sucker for punishment.
I found myself in High school battling homework , the high school hierarchy, and young love. Between English lit and staking a claim on a cafeteria table I met my new friends Autumn and Finn. Autumn and Finn have been in each other’s lives forever. I don’t think either can remember a time when the other was not around. It started as a sibling relationship, grew into that comfy I-will-kick-any-guys-ass-on-the-playground-that-teases-you-best-friend-place and later something blossomed I don’t think either of them saw coming but, seemed to me and The Mothers like such a natural progression of their relationship. The issue comes when you do realize it but both of you are dating other people and your social status’s in school put you in different places and pulled you apart. In as much as they are not conjoined twins anymore, when Autumn sees him walking down a hallway or steals a glance from across the table his still Finn. The goofy boy who for endless hours would just watch her read while he played football and who she never really imagined living without but now does.
They say when something is meant for you nothing can hold it back from being yours. I don’t know about that jury’s still out but, for these two a rebirth of their friendship meant a reconnection of that old bond that never quite broke. It was a little bent and batted but still very much solid. Spending the summer with Autumn while she nursed her feels about Jamie who seriously was getting on my nerves. I mean who calls someone pretty girl all the damn time. The woman has a name for one and other great qualities too. If you wanted to appease her so badly next time try and compliment her brain 😦 anyway I digress.
A couple of breakfast runs and late nights later and they knew this is it. This is what Bach meant in Suite No 3 II. Air. What every composer in history fills their music sheets with. What Michelangelo saw before he started painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, my gosh! What Jane Austin poured her soul into. Autumn and Finn found IT. Or rather they were blessed with IT and now they had to cherish IT.
In the wild winds of passion and love, life happens. So I ask you – Is it better to never find that extraordinary love and die not knowing how incredible that feels and the possibilities it holds? Or having it for even just one moment and departing this life knowing you knew love, you felt love, you were loved?
I’m leaning towards the latter.
I’m a little heartbroken and a little devasted but also so happy I read it.
I rated this ⭐⭐⭐ on Goodreads. I would recommend it if my thoughts resonates with you, go pick it up.
I think I will sit here and ponder on the meaning of love in 2024
Ciao,
Love Cece xx
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What’s everyone currently reading?
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As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
Blurb Bit :
Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She had a normal teenager’s life.
Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her imagined companion, Khawf, who haunts her every move in an effort to keep her safe.
But even with Khawf pressing her to leave, Salama is torn between her loyalty to her country and her conviction to survive. Salama must contend with bullets and bombs, military assaults, and her shifting sense of morality before she might finally breathe free. And when she crosses paths with the boy she was supposed to meet one fateful day, she starts to doubt her resolve in leaving home at all.
Soon, Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are—not a war, but a revolution—and decide how she, too, will cry for Syria’s freedom.
My Thoughts :
You and I have never been in the same room before. We’ve never been on the same page before. We’ve never met but, when my dearest friend said read this I did because she knows me. We’re on the same page, always. And wow, nice to meet you my new friend, Zoulfa.
I type this with blurry eyes filled with tears. You wrote a mammoth of a book. I was caught in the after effects of a book slump storm and now I think I will be experiencing book hangover. So thanks for that and my colleagues now all know about your book cause hangover is in full effect.
I found myself in Syria. A country who for over 10 years has been fighting for freedom. I live in a country that has had that fight. I think we may always be building towards or fighting for something here. It’s painful. More than that it’s fatal. It’s the kind of fight that is unforgettable and leaves you either dead or forever engraved, marked by the tragedy of despair. Marked by everything and everyone you’ve lost.
Salama and Kenan lost too much. Too many loved ones too many friends too many imagined dreams. Along with millions of Syrians they lost the life they deserved to live. The one where every choice was theirs, every action, decision right or wrong was theirs to make. Theirs to make on the land that raised them.
Every chapter I read either broke my heart or mended it. Human beings are so resilient. I was both inspired and filled with melancholy. There were moments Salama could have just given up but she chose to look for the colour in the world – all the shades of blue. Even caught between a bomb and a gun barrel, smoke billowing she remembered his face, his smile, the way he always smells like lemons and always feels like home and that would pull her right out of the dark.
As much as their foundation is in Syria. As much as their very identity is Syria and as much as their loved ones lay forever trapped beneath the debris they need to make a decision for themselves and Kenan’s siblings. Do they stay and fight or do they fight for a future? A future where Salama becomes a pharmacists or a surgeon and Kenan becomes an illustrator and they create a children’s book together of wild fantasy. A future where little Lama and Yusuf get future’s and school and kid things not trauma, shrapnel and broken limbs. Even if that future includes a hike on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, they need to make a decision.
What would you do?
Currently, over 6.2 million Syrians are internally displaced and 5.6 million are refugees scattered around Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. I pray one day every human being gets the life they pray for in the land of their choosing.
I think I will just sit here and take a moment to count my blessings.
Love, Cece xx
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The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Book Blurb :
Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him….
The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.
My Thoughts :
Alex Michaelides what a book you wrote. *cheers louding* Sir, you and I are now friends.
To be honest I was beginning to think I’ve lost something. Something vital to me – the part of me that gets swept away between pages and my wild imagination. A part of my essence. You and The Silent Patient awoke me from hibernation, thank you.
So, I found myself in England, London to be exact. At The Grove Psychiatric hospital, where a what shall we call her famous or infamous artists is residing. Alicia Berenson was admitted a few years ago for shooting her husband in the head 5 times or was it 6, I forget. She blew his skull apart. Why you may ask? We’ll let’s just say Gabriel Berenson didn’t know how to keep his film in his camera. You see he was a celebrated Photographer. Shooting (excuse the pun) for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and all of them and it must have been on one of those campaigns he captured the wrong beauty. Hell hath no fury and all that.
Why people cheat is one of those things we can muse about forever without any definitive explanation. I’ve always thought people should ask for what they want in relationships but hey what do I know I’m single and I digress. Theo Faber is a psychotherapist. His also a deeply wounded soul. His soul may be many shades darker than most and in a way I find myself being able to justify his actions. Call it empathy call it naivity call it someone who knows grief. Who knows that Grief demands space in our lives and the way we all express and repair look different. In addition I think the pain we carry from childhood trauma and adult disappointment can change who we are. All these parts of us make up our very foundation and sometimes foundations are unstable.
And so I think that you should read this book. Read it because you need answers. Read it because relationships are complicated and people are well, people. I believe that a book will find me when it’s my turn to read it and thats why I read it and also because psychology is a longtime interest of mine. How our minds work. Why we do what we do. Why Alicia killed Gabriel. Why she did it in such a dramatic fashion. Why Theo thought he was helping her help himself. Why Kathy and Gabriel walked out of their marriages and into the bush together. Also I needed to know why the book is titled this way. I needed answers. You my book friend will be shocked. You will be thrilled. You will feel psychoanalysed, maybe a little reflective or at least I think you will if you a little bit like me. More than that I hope you will enjoy it. I certainly did.
Now, have you ever been so angry or hurt that it silences you? Blows the air right from your lungs and leaves you deflated, speechless.
Alicia was perhaps too familiar with those feelings.
Thank you to my BookTok friend Caiti who rescued me from Book Slump with this recommendation. You were right it grasped me.
I think I am just going to walk around in Hampstead Hill for a while longer.
Ciao,
Love Cece xx -
I’m obsessed 🤎
Happy Easter Weekend
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Pretty in Pink 🌸🌷💕
Happy Hump Day!
What’s everyone reading today?
Anyone one of these books will transport you to a beautiful world…
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Blue Monday? If I get to spend the day with these fictional boys then sign me up!
One book at a time
Welcome to the book blog of Cece Brown
BooksByCC is a blog that documents an individual’s journey with books. All the adventures, dedications, great love stories, fierce sword fights and life lessons. Pop in let’s talk about them all.
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