Thanks HarperCollins Publishers Australia and netgalley for this ARC.

This is a sad, poetic, and what might have been kinda enthralling novel. You'll be lost in a kind of poetic daze.

‘And in the end, all her waiting had come to nothing.’

In 1965, Emily Hale hears that T S Eliot is dead. She is seventy-two. She heads off to Gloucester, Massachusetts, in her Ford Roadster. With a satchel of letters, Emily Hale is heading by fishing boat to the Dry Salvages (off Cape Ann, Massachusetts). And as the boat heads out to sea, Emily Hale reflects on her life with T S Eliot. They fell in love, in 1913. But when Tom Eliot left the USA for England, left Tom Eliot to become T S Eliot, their relationship shifted. What might it have been? What if Emily Hale and Tom Eliot had married? If, instead of his confidante and muse, she’d become his lover and wife?

In this novel, in this telling, Emily Hale waits for an opportunity which never arises. She hopes, but knows not how to move beyond.

‘That’s what hope does. Feeds you the story you want to believe. Except it’s not a story, it’s your life.’

And the satchel of letters? What does Emily Hale intend to do with them? Has she the courage? This novel traverses the lifetime of Emily Hale’s relationship with T S Eliot over the course of the day she spends at sea. Emily Hale, fixed in place physically for most of the novel, moving between past and present, remembering and regretting.

This is the third novel in Steven Carroll’s Eliot Quartet. Each novel looks at a different aspect of T S Eliot’s life, and this is Emily Hale’s story, of a love which never found the right time or place. It’s a story of unrequited hope, of opportunities missed or somehow misplaced. I’ve read and enjoyed the first two novels in the quartet (‘The Lost Life’ and ‘A World of Other People’). I will now wait – patiently, as I must– for the fourth.

Steven Carroll is one of my favourite novelists and T S Eliot is one of my favourite poets. I’m really enjoying these novels. I sometimes feel annoyed with both the T S Eliot and the Emily Hale portrayed in these pages, and I wonder. Why did Emily Hale continue to wait?

‘We wished for one thing, and History gave us another.’

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Fourth Estate for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

This is a luminous and beautifully written novel about Emily Hale and her love for 'Boston Tom', i.e. the famous poet T.S. Eliot. This is part of a series about the couple by Steven Carroll and this one is just as good as the one I read years ago.

Tom and Emily famously enacted a scene from Jane Austen in the early twentieth century and fell in love, but Tom went to England and suddenly married someone else without even telling Emily. The marriage was extremely unhappy to say the least and Tom and Emily started meeting again secretly in England and the USA.

Steven Carroll has created a deeply sympathetic character in Emily, who struggles with her love for Tom, wondering if there is 'some flaw in the crystal'. Now a drama teacher, she looks back on her life recalling their love affair and trying to come to terms with her situation and why she never gave up on him. Is she partly at fault for not taking the leap when they first seemed destined for marriage?

This book is rather deep and profound, and Carroll uses 'stream of consciousness' writing much of the time, so it isn't really a good idea to read it as an ebook. I strongly suggest that you buy the book!

I received this free ebook from Net Galley in return for an honest review.
EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9781460751091
PRICE $29.99 (AUD)

Book review in one sentence? – I cried my eyes out all through the book.

Why? I guess, this book hit too close to home. I know all about unreal expectations, broken promises, waiting, hoping, imagining, planning. I know very well what it is like to watch the life go by while you are waiting for something to happen, for him to make a decision, to make a step…

I read this book not as a literary critic or scholar in literature or even somebody who knows TS Eliot works. I do not. I do not know TS Eliot works. I hardly ever read poetry, let alone poetry in English. I read this book as a woman. I read this book as someone who has been in a similar situation. I have been Emily to my Tom. I have been waiting. Moreover, I have been left waiting and hoping ONLY BECAUSE I’VE DECIDED SO. It was only my doing and noone else…. I have been Emily.

Back to book review. I believe this book will cause a stir in Eliot-scholar community. It will call for answers (in waiting for Emily Hale’s archives to be opened). Also, I believe this book needs to be read together with all the others in the QUARTET.

However, if you are reading this book and this book only, please be kind. Be kind to Emily and even kinder to Tom. This book is their story that climaxed on 31st June 1939.

No, I did not make a mistake. 31st June 1939 is the date Emily wrote in her diary. It is the day. It is THE DAY. Afterwards, everything went down. After this date, everything unfolded and unraveled. After this date, A New England Affair stepped from the world of imagination, hopes and wishes into the real world of broken promisses, rejected love confessions and marriages to other people.

Emily Hale waited all her life for the ‘right time’. She waited for the moment when her love will become real and when she will become real in Tom’s world. He promised her that. She lived by that promise…

Read this book if you know and love TS Eliot. Read this book if you love ‘literary love stories’. But most importantly, read this book if you are Emilies and Toms of this world…

Watch and learn…

P.S. This book is not a light read. It is not a train-ride read as well. This book is a project on it’s own. You will need time, a quiet place and a quiet mind to read this book. Give it it’s due. It will be worth it.