I loved this book, made me think about a lot of things women have to face with regards fertility and having children but good to have a happy ending

A real page turner, love this type of novel. Will definitely look out for Amanda Prowse in future

This is an emotional and beautiful story. The longing of a woman to be a mother but after several heartbreaking disappointments, she realizes and accepts the fact that she can be a mother to someone she has not given birth to. As a woman who had that struggle, that's what made it feel so real. There are some surprises, several heart-wrenching moments, and also some moments of joy that make this a very enjoyable book. I would highly recommend it to others.

This is the first book by Amanda Prowse that I have read. After reading The Idea of You, I will definitely be reading more of her books.

​Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Adult Contemporary
Recommended Age: 16+
Favorite Quote: “I paid from the dress they had located, and watched as they wrapped it in tissue, before placing it inside little bag. I didn’t want to bring it home, in case anyone found it, so I carefully laid it on the wall of the car park where I had left my car. I hoped, I still hope, that someone found it and a little girl got to wear it. A little girl like you.”
I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley. This did not influence me in any way.
As Lucy approaches her 40th birthday, she seems to have the perfect life. A great marriage, a cozy home, a successful career, and now a chance to begin trying for her own baby. Life couldn’t be anymore perfect. But when conceiving is harder than Lucy thought and when her stepdaughter comes to stay with them, Lucy is constantly reminded of what she feels she’ll never have: a child of her own. When her own failing dreams and her step daughters attitude combine, the results make Lucy feel as if she’s losing everything she’s ever worked towards.
I don’t typically read adult novels, especially adult contemporary novels, but something about this book drew me to it so I decided to give it a try. Generally, this book was an enjoyable novel. The quality of writing was excellent, albeit it was wrote by an author I assume to be British so some of the terms the characters used were a bit unfamiliar to me, but I dug deep to my Doctor Who vocab and came out knowing most of the phrases used lol. The plot development is well thought out and it keeps you guessing til the end. The book is also very insightful. It’s primary objective is to shed light on miscarriages, which is something not a lot of people talk about. It’s a hard subject to approach, which is why a lot of people refuse to discuss it, but the women and men who have had to go through miscarriage shouldn’t have to suffer in silence. More acceptance on the matter is needed and I think this book does a good job at showing how miscarriage can effect everyone. The book also offered insight on what it means to be a mother. A few years ago I stumbled upon this YouTube video featuring women who were walking different paths in their life. Some were mothers who had children of all ages. Some of the mothers were old, some were young. Some of the women were grandmothers and some were stepmoms. Some were pregnant or were trying to conceive. Some had miscarried and some had experienced a still birth. The message was clear: no matter your walk you are a mother. If you’ve wanted, tried, or had a child you’ve been a mother. You’ve also been a mother if you’ve been a stepmom, a surrogate, or a grandmother. Motherhood isn’t defined as the ability to have children, it’s defined by the ability to love the children in your life, love the child who hasn’t come yet, or love the ones who couldn’t stay long. This book is a perfect companion to that YouTube video in that it teaches you about the different types of mothers you can be.
While this book is so beautiful, I did find issue with the pacing, some of the characters, and the ease of reading. I felt the pacing was a bit awkward at times. There were random shifts in time throughout the book and sometimes it wasn’t stated how long of a jump the reader made, which left me confused as to the time line. Lucy and Jonah’s character development also confounded me at certain points. I was amazed at how a nearly 50 year old man could behave like a child and how a nearly 50 year old woman could have thought that secrets were something she could keep in a marriage. I felt both of these characters were childish at times and I sometimes wondered how reliable the narrator (Lucy) was thoughout the novel. I felt some of the things that happened were biased in Lucy’s favor, but this bias was resolved at the end of the novel. This is why I gave the rating a 4.5 rather than a 4, the characters did develop and some of my issues were resolved by the end of the novel. The ease of reading was also an issue I found with the book. It’s not that the writing is bad, quite the opposite, but I felt the material was that in which it might be very hard for some people to read, especially those who’ve suffered the lose of a child at any stage. So, just to forewarn you, you might cry.
Overall I liked the book! This is a new release and I believe you should check it out if it sounds interesting to you! Definitely a must read for anyone who’s had kids or is thinking about having them.

Lucy is a 40-year woman who has worked her way up the corporate ladder and finds herself wanting more. She meets Jonah, they marry and begin trying to start a family. Things don't go as planned. Her desire to have children doesn't mean she wants to start with a teenager, which is exactly what happens when Jonah's daughter moves in. As is sometimes the case, the daughter and stepmother do not always have the best relationship. Lucy struggles to make things work with her marriage and "daughter". and in the end has to make the decision to do what is good for her.

For the soft-hearted, grab your tissues. This book draws you in from the very beginning. It is a definite page-turner and spiced with emotion (maybe more with someone finding themselves in similar circumstances to Lucy). The characters are believable and the situations are also realistic. It can, and probably will be read in an afternoon.

Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and Amanda Prowse for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This book showed the courage of women and the most important thing of all - family. A well-paced book with well-constructed characters and interesting storyline.

I thought The Idea of You was a lovely gentle read. Amanda Prowse offers readers a family story that unfolds easily. Her characters are layered and interesting. The story itself moves smoothly and the plot is well crafted. I appreciated Ms. Prowse's take on what makes up a
"family, motherhood and fatherhood." I found the book to be an entertaining read.

Lucy appears to be successful from the outside, she has a fantastic career and a beautiful apartment but she doesn't have a partner to share her life with. At a christening though, this all changes when she meets Jonah. Theirs is a match made in heaven.

What would complete Lucy and Jonah's relationship is a baby however this proves to be rather difficult.

Add in Lucy's difficult relationship with her mother, a step daughter, a younger sister with a perfect nuclear family and the cracks start to show. Plus Lucy is harbouring a secret.

Having never read but having heard of Amanda Prowse I was intrigued to find out what ‘The Idea of You’ would be like. I was pleased to find that I enjoyed this four star read.


Nearly forty years old and having what seems to be a great life coming together with a new marriage and a pregnancy Lucy’s life starts to go not as planned. Even though she has Jonah by her side things become strained. When her new husband’s teenage daughter from a previous relationship comes to live with them Lucy finds that her life gets turned upside down and she struggles with it.


Lucy and Jonah are a strong couple but but they can only take so much and with the addition of Camile Lucy has to deal with things that she never imagined. Struggling as she has to work on her relationship with Camille and dealing with the miscarriages Lucy has to find a find a way to keep herself going.


This was a story of building and sustaining relationships. It was an emotional read that was at times heart breaking, touching and filled with a strength and resolve to get back up and continue when life knocks you down again and again. I enjoyed reading this book as it was well written and flowed well. I will definitely be reading more from Amanda Prowse.


I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.

Heart-wrenching and highly emotive. Amanda draws you in, I spent many nights with tears in my eyes. I'm sure there are many women (and men!) who can relate to the multiple sensitive subjects, this book covers, and have been very thoughtfully written about.
Well done Amanda! Another 5* read!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book.

I've been reading a lot of women's fiction lately and from the description, this book seemed like something that I would love. While there were definitely moments that I really enjoyed and was engaged, I mostly found the storyline slow. I didn't really connect with the characters or find them very likeable. I didn't dislike them, I just didn't particularly like them either.

This book deals with a difficult subject matter, and I'm glad I read it, but I probably won't reread or recommend to friends.

My score is closer to 2.5 stars as while I didn’t find the story interesting it was well-written. I didn't identify with any of the characters and thought they were quite quite unoriginal.

Forty year old Lucy is newly married to Jonah and would desperately like to be a mother. She has a high flying career but hopes to be able to juggle that with motherhood. However she doesn't seem to be getting the chance as she struggles with miscarriages. This is basically the plot for the first half alongside Lucy knitting a lot of baby clothes despite only being a few weeks pregnant. Things get slightly more interesting with the arrival from France of Camille, the step-daughter. The plot then descends into clichéd teenage spats with her perceived ‘wicked’ step-mother. This rather irritated me as most teenagers I know, including my own, have been nice people and I find books and media articles who portray them otherwise quite unfair and annoying.

When I saw this sitting on my shelf, it took me a few days to decide if I wanted to read this or not. This is not something that I usually read. However, once I started, I could not put it down. The story felt real! I felt every emotion...I cried and I laughed. You could easily Imagine this being you or any other woman in your life. A great read!

Lucy has been desperate to get married and have children. One dream becomes reality when she marries the handsome Jonah Carpenter whom she meets at a friends baby's Christening. Her second dream proves more difficult and there are some heartbreaking and poignant descriptions as events unfold. Unexpectedly Camille, Lucy's stepdaughter comes to stay and there are some well observed pieces of narrative as their relationship evolves. The book touches on some sensitive topics and I found myself hoping that all would go well for Lucy. Indeed in some ways it does but not necessarily how you would anticipate things would turn out. There is also a back story woven in to the main story which adds another perspective. Overall this is an emotional and well written read.

A really lovely book which has you rooting for the characters throughout and hoping for a happy ending for all.
It lost it a bit towards the end for me but it was still an enjoyable read with a satisfying conclusion.

This was the first book of Amanda Prowse's that I'd read and I enjoyed it very much. I thought she wrote in a contemporary, cozy style about issues of fertility, step-parenting, being a career woman and the insecurities we all face. I would be interested in reading other novels by this author.

This book was heartbreaking and yet so positive at the same time.
The story flowed and it was so well written I felt like I knew Lucy personally and felt real sympathy at the roller coaster of emotions she was dealing with.

Amanda Prowse dealt with the sensitive issue of miscarriage very delicately, almost beautifully and though I've never experienced this tragic event, I lived through it with Lucy.
There was only one tiny detail that annoyed me, possibly a factual error, when someone said in the book that they were having a boy when they were only thirteen weeks pregnant, I've had three children and was never told their gender until around week 20.

A small issue though and it didn't stop me reading the novel in just over a day.
Highly recommend.

A moving and evocative tale that follows Lucy through her anguish of lost pregnancies and her struggle to come to terms with her past. The strain on her marriage is compounded by her difficulty in being open about her feelings whilst Jonah her husband has distractions of his own. It is easy to feel Lucy's agony throughout the novel as she eventually comes to terms with her life.

The Idea of You, Amanda Prowse

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  General Fiction, Women's Fiction.

I'm a late addition to the Amanda Prowse fan-club, having only seen her works recently. This is my third read of her work. 
I put off reading this for a while, not because it didn't interest me but because from the last two I've read I was pretty sure it was going to be a solid read, one which absorbed my full attention and really tested my emotions. I have to be in the mood for that.

I'm a romance reader primarily - of all types - but so many of those are a little light and fluffy, fine if that's what you're in the mood for, but sometimes I want something deeper, a novel that really intrigues me, makes me think, makes me wonder what I would do if I was the main character. Amanda's books, at least the three I've read, are just perfect for those times. 

Its a very emotional read, great characters and in Lucy there's a part of so many women today. We have the choice now about motherhood, when to become a mum, or not to have children at all if that's our choice. 

For people like Lucy a husband goes along with this dream of motherhood. Some in her position go the single parent route, via a friend, an anonymous hook-up, or the medically safer route of IVF. Lucy wants the whole ten yards, the husband, the baby, the family home the traditional family unit.
She's getting older though, as friends and colleagues keep reminding her, time is growing close. Why do people do that? Assume everyone wants to be a mum, not knowing if its choice or circumstances that are stopping them? If its the latter then every reminder must touch at their heart, really hurt. 
Men don't get that, their peers never say "C'mon mate, those swimmers are shriveling fast. Clock's ticking for Dad of the Decade". They don't get frequent reminders of time passing, chances being missed and yet many are in Lucy's position, want to be fathers but circumstances haven't brought it their way. 
And then just when all looks promising it all falls down, and down and down. Poor Lucy, it was like one heartbreak after another. 

The character portrayals here were perfect. Lucy, I could feel her emotions, her longing to make her mum proud, and of course her dad, though he's been dead many years.
She keeps her longing for a family to herself, and gets kind of written off as one of those cold, career women, eternal auntie. Again, men never get judged in this way....
We feel throughout that she's carrying some deep anguish, that she has secrets, and wow when they come out, its like a toppling of a card house, everything falls apart just when the family need to pull together. 

Jonah was a lovely man, adored "my Lucy" - I love the way he calls her that, in that warm voice full of love. I can hear it in my head. 
He's so deeply in love, so happy that he has a second chance at marriage after the disaster that his first one was. It gave him Camille though, who's 16 now, and just as he and Lucy look set for the future they want after some setbacks, she arrives to stay for the summer.

Camille, a perfect portrayal of a mixed up teen, and most of them are just that. Its a time when everything seems to be wonderful or disastrous, its all highest highs and deepest lows. There's little happy medium, teens just career along, carried on their emotions and as for teen love...its intense. Often fades, leaving one party feeling heartbroken, til the next partner comes along but can win through. I met my husband at 16, he was 21, we married when I was 18 and had 40 happy years until he died. 
Camille felt so real, had a teen daughter myself and of course I can recall my own teen years. She seems to be dismissive of Lucy, she's cleverly manipulative in the way she acts, and tells Lucy how wonderful her mum is, her friends are, how absorbing and interesting life in France is. 
Lucy looks back to her own teen years, where her father had just died and she wasn't like Camille, didn't have her confidence, and did exactly as she was told. 

Teens seem to be so much more mature these days, Like Lucy I can recall being expected to obey adults without question, to not talk back, to be respectful even if they or what they wanted may not have deserved it. At 16 I was in many ways quite young for my age, though very determined to stick to and for my love.  In contrast Camille feels like 16 going on 26, and yet underneath is there a different girl?

Its a fabulous book, full of circumstances found in many families, and part of it is so relevant to my own experience.
I know exactly how Lucy felt, been there though a little different ending for me. Its a heartbreaking read at times, I had such tears for her, her anguish and wish for what so many people take for granted. Tears for Jonah too, he loved Lucy, was so happy at his second chance at marriage but it wasn't all plain sailing. 

Of course what I always want is a HEA, not for me books that end in doom and gloom, real life has enough of that and this book delivers a perfect ending. Not perhaps the one I'd expected, the predicable, easy route but one that's far more realistic while still giving me some smiles, and making me think all that they went through was worth it. 

Stars: five, a fabulous read, so very real feeling, with characters I could see and hear in my head, that made me very emotional for them.

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

This was an emotional and empowering novel. Lucy has climbed the corporate ladder yet she feels she is missing something every important in her life. While others envy her, Lucy yearns for the lives of her peers, she longs to be sleep deprived because her child kept her up all night or to come to work late because her child was having a bad morning. As she sneaks again into the bathroom with a pregnancy test, I hoped that the results this time would bring the couple the baby they so desperately wanted.

When Camille arrives for the summer, Lucy has mixed emotions how she will fit into the mix. Jonah hasn’t seen his daughter for quite some time and now that she’s a teen, she’s become a different person. The apartment explodes as the three of them try to find their footing. Lucy wants to be a friend to Camille yet she is her stepmother and what exactly does that mean and then we have Camille behavior, which she can change in an instant. I liked listening to them and reading about them, these two women seemed to be fighting for space but what was really going on between them? The father, Camille adores him and he enjoys the attention that he gets from her. He doesn’t feel he is picking sides when things get heated between the three of them but the others in the household feel differently. The couple desperately wanted to have a child yet this goal seems to fall into the hands of Lucy when Camille arrives. I could feel how lonely and isolated she felt as she battled this alone while her husband was on stage being a hero for Camille. Camille finds a summer job where she meets Dex. He seems like a nice guy who has his life planned out, a guy who will go far and Camille falls hard for him. Dex is a game changer for this household, as he stretches this family to great lengths and the truth finally is revealed. What a terrific ending, I didn’t see that coming and loved how it all played out. There were such a variety of emotions for all the characters in this novel, I loved how they shifted around. I enjoyed this novel as it dealt with family, relationships, secrets, and first love.

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing in exchange for an honest opinion.