The way we were by Sinead Moriarty.
When Alice's husband Ben dies whilst working abroad, her world falls apart. They shared twenty years and two daughters. Life without him is unimaginable..
A moving read. Read in one sitting. Couldn't put it down. 5*.

Alice has come through the grief of losing her husband Ben and is learning to live again. She's even started a relaitonship with Dan,. Now, though, she finds out Ben is alive, What would you do? Things have changed a lot. A good read.

This is an emotional, heartbreaking read. It was so well written and dealt with loss and grief in a beautiful way.

This is my first book by Sinead Moriarty, but her 11th!
a brilliantly written book about life, love and finding out what you really want.

A very emotional and moving story of loss, love, and family.

This book was so good. It made me emotional, and just very connected to the characters, but their story as well. Very well written.

The Way We Were, is the story of a mother, a wife, a woman, as she strives to make everyone around her happy, to do the right thing as she sees it. Alice, our protagonist is juggling life as a General Practitioner and a mother. She has the support of her brother and throughout the book, it is wonderful to see how close the siblings are. Her relationship with Ben is just normal, the way most couples are, until it seems as though Ben is going through a mid-life crisis.

The author starts off by introducing the characters to us, describing their lives from day to day to give us a sense of who they are. Then slowly, the plot thickens with Ben taking an assignment to operate in Africa. He takes this as his opportunity to find meaning in his work and to do something more. Alice, having gone through the trauma of losing her parents, lives in constant fear of losing those close to her. The author manages to bring out the emotions and thoughts of the characters through this period and highlights the decisions they are forced to take. The children, Jools and Holly are polar opposites, and we follow their journey of understanding, acceptance and growth in this book as well.

As the story progresses, Alice receives a call that leaves the whole family in shock and mourning. Ben is dead. It is an unimaginable situation for the characters and the reader can feel their pain and emotions. The shock and horror of the situation and the need for Alice to stay strong for her children are key parts of the plot. The author describes the situations and how the children react. How they slowly come together as a family to support each other. How each one deals with the grief of losing a loved one. As time progresses, they slowly accept and move a little forward with their lives, to the extent that Alice starts seeing someone and the girls really like him.

Now imagine the characters' shock when on the day of announcing her engagement again, Alice receives a call from Ben, her supposedly dead husband saying that he is alive and coming back, after three whole years. Is it possible to go back to the way things were? Is it possible to accept that things have changed, the people have changed and still live together? So many questions arise and form the crux of the later part of the book. The fact that Alice is willing to try everything to keep her marriage together, mainly for the sake of her children shows a deep sense of character. Though there were many times I wondered why something was happening, it all came together in the end. Ben's way of wooing his wife and showing her what she was missing felt a little over the top and too easy for me.

The issues brought out are something many people can relate to (with respect to mid-life crisis and teenage years). The love between two people and the effort needed to keep a relationship alive, the sacrifices and compromises are portrayed well. The journey towards acceptance and healing is a long one, but is worth it in the end, if the effort is spent by all.

The story is well written and worth a read.

I did not want this book to end. The characters are very real and I feel like I know them know. I've read a few of her books and would read anything by this author.

Very fast paced and very intriguing. I enjoyed how it kept me hooked and it was an original story. Nowadays so many books read the same. Highly recommend

I received an arc copy if this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest review. What an amazing book. Alice is married to Ben and they have two daughters. Alice receives word that Ben was killed on a trip that she begged him not to go on. She is devastated and goes through two years of grieving and finally meets someone new and is ready to start a new life with him when she gets a call that her husband did not die.

The Way We Were is a fabulous book. It has a great storyline and believable characters. I really enjoyed this author's writing and will be reading more of their work. I highly recommend this book.

Poignant. Engages you from the first page. I would highly recommend this book. Thank you, Netgalley for the opportunity to read & review this book.

Excellent and well written story. Loved it so much I couldn't put it down.

Sinéad Moriarty has done it once again with her novel, The Way We Were. This is an author that perfectly, and often painfully, tells a story about the ups and downs of everyday life. Her stories are always realistic, and are often heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. The focus of The Way We Were is family, marriage, and all that entails.

Ben and Alice live in London, and have two teenage daughters, Jools and Holly. They have a marriage like many others...they go to work (both are doctors) and spend their spare time with their children, often forgetting to take time for one another. Alice is a devoted wife, and content with her routine life. Ben, on the other hand, always seems to want more, and is looking for a way to break that routine his life has become. This leads to Ben taking a humanitarian trip to Africa...a trip Alice pleads against. Alice later receives a call that Ben died (the reader knows that he was actually captured), and life as she knew it quickly falls apart. Summoning up strength she didn't even know she had, she does her best to help the girls through their grief. Slowly, they all begin to rebuild their lives, and Alice eventually meets another man, Dan. Dan has been a blessing in Alice's life, and friendship soon turns to love. On the eve of their engagement party, she receives a call that Ben is still alive.

The story that unfolds is powerful, heartbreaking and heartfelt. How much is one family expected to deal with? Alice, however, never loses her inner strength, and keeps trying to move forward. In addition to the story with Ben and Dan, there is also the story of Jools and Holly. Both girls have been deeply affected by everything, and that makes for some difficult and challenging times. This is an author that writes from the heart...and you will feel for the characters as if you know them personally. She brilliantly evokes a wide range of raw emotions throughout....joy, pain, love, loss, tears and laughter.

Overall, this is a beautifully crafted and perfectly paced story about family, love, loss, hope and courage. It has strong and well developed characters portrayed through a storyline that is believable. From the first page until the very last, it will hold you captive...so much so that I read it from cover to cover in one sitting. I hope you give The Way We Were a chance...you will not be disappointed!

I would like to thank Bookouture and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book. My views are my own and are in no way influenced by anyone else.

I was absorbed in the story of Ben and Alice, and their two daughters, Jools and Holly. Ben is a surgeon, looking for adventure to break him out of his routine, while his wife Alice is more a worrier, looking for safety for their family. As a surgeon, Ben takes on a week of training surgeons overseas. Not to give away too much of the story, suffice it to say it was hard to put the book down.

Sinéad Moriarty was described to me once as the Irish female version of Nicholas Sparks and I’d have to say that seems fairly accurate as she has this ability to write novels centered on love, family and relationships that pull at the heartstrings.

This one was broken up into multiple parts with chapters from different characters point of views and although that sounds as if it could be confusing and take away from the story how she handled it actually made the story very easy to follow.

Moriarty definitely knows how to write the emotional spectrum of issues and for the most part accurately portray what someone would go through along with realistic behavior as a result of these intense situations.

As a parent of daughters it was hard at times reading anything to do with the Jools character because she was such a brat who came off abusive towards her sister and mother while worshipping her father as someone who could do no wrong. I often had to remind myself she was a teenager and that can be par for the course as we all know how selfish and self-centered teens can be but still at times I couldn’t help thinking that some stronger parenting might curb her thinking talking to her mother and sister the way she does is not appropriate.

The scene that was most cringe worthy for me was the first time Alice and her husband had sex when he returned. The way she described it, how Alice felt, was almost like she was being raped. I know that is incredibly strong but here’s Alice essentially being forced to have sex that she didn’t seem to want but felt forced to have simply because it was her husband. I get why she would have her do it because if your husband has been gone for 2 years and misses having sex with his wife it’s only natural he’d want to and if the situation with Alice was different and she had been pining for him those 2 years I’m sure how she would’ve reacted would’ve been different. BUT in this scene, how it was set up and where these 2 characters were in this particular moment of their lives – it was tough and that theme kept get portrayed for quite some time. I’m not saying the author did anything wrong, on the contrary I believe in a real situation this very well could be accurate. It’s a testament to her writing that she could create such a strong emotional reaction to one of her scenes.

My only true negative that I felt needed to be rethought in how it was written was the handling of Jools mental health issues was handled as I felt it was too quickly mentioned and blown off what she was doing to herself. This is a huge issue particularly in current society and I felt the way it was written made it seem like just because she allegedly stopped meant what she had been doing was no big deal now. Both parents seemed overly wrapped up in their own issues which is why they didn’t pursue this and they had long established giving into her rather than use stricter parenting methods. Something like this can appear to stop but once someone uses this as a coping mechanism the odds they will return to it without proper therapy is extremely high.

This was my first book to read by her even though she’s now written more than 10 but it was good enough I’m curious to see how her others one are so I’m adding her to my list of authors to check out.

Imagine you are in a happy, albeit a bit stale, marriage. You have two children, a well-established career, but your husband is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis and decides he needs a new challenge. And that challenge comes in the form of him taking his less than happy ass to Africa to do some medical work. You don't want him to go...but he's going. You have words with him, he leaves, and a little while later you learn he's been killed when his vehicle hits a landmine. You grieve, your barely hold yourself and your daughters together, but you make it through. After a couple years, you finally can move on and find someone to love...a rich, handsome someone, who wants nothing more to take care of you. You get engaged, and on the night you announce your engagement, you find out your husband wasn't really killed, he was kidnapped, has escaped, and is coming home, expecting for life to just kind of pick up where it left off. And there you have our story of Alice and Ben, their two daughters, and Dan, the new man in her life. Alice has choices to make. Ben has amends to make and the Herculean task of helping Alice remember what they had and making her fall in love with him again. I read a great deal of this book with a giant lump in my throat. It was a really lengthy book, but yet I wanted more...a more in-depth look into Alice's new relationship with Dan and why she fell in love with him. More angst, more conflict...just more.

THE WAY WE WERE is a poignant story that captured my attention from the cover art. However, the story line captivated me from page one....and did not let go until the final chapter. What a beautifully written novel. I loved it. I have recommended it to all of my reading friends...and libraries. Thank you for the opportunity to share it w/ others.

I've read six of this author's books, but the previous one was years ago. I thought the subject matter was very interesting, and I liked that there were a few different issues that were addressed throughout. I can not imagine how it must feel when your supposedly dead husband arrives back on the scene just as you've moved on with your life. Jools and Kevin are great characters, and helped lighten the mood throughout. I just wished I felt more while reading this story, but even though some of the events were very upsetting I never cried or felt deeply upset, but I suppose that this makes it the perfect holiday read.
The Story: Alice and Ben are a couple like any other bound together by love, work, children, familiarity and a shared sense of purpose. But when Ben decides to pursue a dream of his own, he brings devastation on his family and, as far as they know, their lives will never be the same again.
Alice and Ben are now on different paths: she needs to put their shared life behind her; he needs to remember it to survive.

Sinead does it again! What a powerful read that will leave you hooked! She writes about subject matter that everyone can relate too! I have no doubt she has written another bestseller!