Another Love

Wow, just wow! I don't think I've had a book for a little bit now that's literally had me struggling to put it down, nor have I managed to read one in 2 days for quite some time but Amanda Prowse has truly produced a wonderful book in Another Love, one of her No Greater Courage series.

This is the story of Romilly and the illness which tears her life and her family apart and her lifelong struggle to manage it. The book opens with Romilly's letter to her teenage daughter Celeste as she apologises for allowing her alchoholism to have ruined their lives and how she sometimes wished she had an illness people could see as then they would understand that she can't just pull herself together and stop drinking but that it's something she cannot control. From this point we are given interlinking chapters from Romilly's view of the past and Celeste's memories of growing up with a mum who is spiralling out of control.

From the outset of the book Romilly is a heavy social drinker, from her time meeting her future husband David at university she speaks freely of big nights out where she uses alcohol to lower her inhibitions and turn her into the confident party goer rather than the nerdy insect girl she feels like inside. As the chapters progress her drinking slowly begins to spiral, suddenly she's not only drinking socially but her glass of wine at the end of the day has progressed to a bottle, then to two and beyond.

This book takes us through Romilly's journey, the constant uphill struggle to battle against the call of alcohol and the never ending battle she faces to feel good enough for her family. She is a woman who has everything and as a reader there are points of the book where you want to take her aside and say, “What are you doing?” and this is a theme Prowse explores through her lead character, that motivation that drives her drinking to the expense of everything else.

The chapters from her daughter Celeste's perspective are heartbreaking, as she recounts the ups and downs of living with an alcoholic parent, the unreliability of what she might find walking through the door at the end of the day and the happy memories she has of times when her mum would be sober.

These two stories intertwine really beautifully and the book pulls you through with quite succinct chapters, blending the voices of mother and daughter beautifully. For me though there was one voice in the book whom I felt I didn't hear as much as I'd have liked and whose story would have been equally as intriguing and that is the one of David, Romilly's husband who literally lives through the dramas and heartache of watching his wife spiral into the grip of an illness she cannot control. It would have been really heartbreaking to get inside his head and understand at what point he felt he needed to step back and stop trying to help his wife get better.

I couldn't recommend this book any more highly, it is my favourite book thus far this year. It is one that's made me keen to read another Amanda Prowse novel and soon.