When You Were Mine – Emma-Claire Wilson

Published By: Avon
Pages: 384
Released On: 01/08/2024

My life is a mess. My marriage is falling apart, and I’d hoped the arrival of our baby girl would bring us closer together. Yet, as she grows, I see less of a resemblance to my husband, stirring unsettling questions.

I was hoping a visit from my friend, Victoria would bring some stability. With her seemingly perfect life in Spain, she embodies hope for a brighter future.

But our reunion has taken an unexpected turn. And when a shock diagnosis shakes our family further, Victoria doesn’t know it yet, but she might just hold the key to saving our family.

But if I want her to help, a big secret has to come out. Revealing the truth risks everything – my marriage, our friendship, our families. Can we weather this storm, or will it shatter us beyond repair?

*****

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.

Emma-Claire’s first book, This Child of Mine, was one of my favourite 2023 reads. It was absolutely gorgeous and I’ve been waiting to see how she follows it up, so I’m very excited about this one.

There’s a character called Victoria which I am totally going to believe was written for me 🙂

Generally speaking, I am not a fan of books that talk about the pandemic and lockdown, because I feel I’ve had to live it, I don’t want to read about it too. But in the context of this book, it is much needed as it shows the catalyst for everything else that happens, and I’m not sure how easy it would have been to get to that without talking about the struggles the characters felt during that time.

I don’t have children of my own, but there are 7 children under the age of 12 in my family and so I do know a small bit about raising them. And from my limited experience, Emma-Claire has expertly explored how parenthood – specifically motherhood – can, whilst being amazing, can be tiring, exhausting, emotional, angry, draining, annoying, and I suppose at times, even if we whisper it to ourselves at times, not worth it. Especially if the other half of the parenting couple is less interested. She’s put that front and centre so we can immediately get the feeling as to how our characters are feeling in themselves and to one another.

We follow two families: Victoria and Mark who are expats in Spain, and Nicole and Andy in Scotland. And their respective children. They’re both fabulous families, each with their own personalities and characteristics, some good and some not so good. They’re very natural and familiar. A lot of readers will identify with them greatly. They complement each other perfectly, and work great as a team. The children are gorgeous and I love this sense of innocence Emma-Claire has infused in it. This innocence that we lose as we become adults and have to focus on things like houses, jobs, money, and illness.

It shouldn’t be surprising when I say that there are some difficult topics in this book, including parenthood, surprise pregnancies, lockdown, physical illness, childbirth complications, post-natal depression, relationship difficulties, affairs, long-distance friendships, emigration, the truths and lies of social media, fostering, family differences, hate, anger.

At first I didn’t think it was going to be as heart-breaking as her first one, and I was glad for that because my emotions are already up and down without adding this into the mix, but I spoke too soon. The second half in particular, there’s something I did not expect! I won’t say why or who or what or how, but yes, it gave me what I have already come to expect from Emma-Claire’s books, even if there’s only been two of them.

She has a beautiful way of composing sentences, a sense of place and people, and setting (I would choose the scenes set in Scotland over the scenes in Spain any day). I just love her ability to write about tough and upsetting situations but infuse them with so much kindness and tenderness and empathy. She’s a magical storyteller and I’m already excited about what she comes up with next.

I read it in a day. It’s not the easiest book to read, there are uncomfortable and upsetting topics and scenes. But it’s infused with so much hope that I couldn’t part with it, and even after finishing it, it is lingering in my mind.