We have heard this story many times, but this author has managed to have the reader more involved with the characters. The boss falls in love with a co-worker twenty years younger. That’s Harry and Lily. Harry is married to Pippa, now feeling her middle age. She knows she is loosing her husband and has her suspicions that there might be another woman, but does nothing about it. Harry tells Lily he doesn’t love his wife anymore, but he has two sons whom he loves dearly and therefore is reluctant to leave his marriage. Lily loves Harry and they meet at every opportunity. Harry becomes obsessed with Lily, so obsessed he takes chances of his wife finding out.
The book is written from three different perspectives which makes it more interesting. It gives the reader insights as to how each character is feeling, and how each reacts to their emotions.
Very well written, an easy enjoyable read.

I can't decide if I liked this book or not. I think it's the sadness of the book that I don't like. The author is getting across what depression can look like in families. And does a wonderful job of it. But I hadn't realized how sad this book would be.
I also had a hard time with the main character. The beginning of the novel dealt with her affair with Harry. But I didn't feel the love she had for him. I understand she dismissed him in a sense that she didn't want to break up his family. But I had a very hard time with believing she was so intensely in love with him as that isn't really the feeling I got in those first few chapters.
To carry on with the theme, Lily meets her father who abandoned his family when he was also going thru depression. This part of the story I enjoyed more, the second half of Lilys story and her family dynamic. But it just seemed to me everyone in Lilys life dealt with depression. Maybe this is a reality I'm just unaware of personally.
But I think people who suffer will find this book to their liking. It also deals with new endings and new beginnings, sometimes happy and sometimes sad.

Affairs never end well do they? Anyway you spin it, someone is on the losing end. The story begins with Harry having an affair with his assistant. His wife Pippa takes awhile to catch on. The story is told mostly in the voice of Lily but perspectives are told by Harry and Pippa as well, giving a rounded view of how each is affected by the transgression.

The writing was good, clear and concise. Without giving anything away, I feel Ms. Wolf lost an opportunity to detail the hardships that follow losses of all types. The fairytale wrap up was disappointing and an easy way out. I wanted and expected so much more from a book titled “The Years After You”.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book.

I loved this unputdownable book!
It was a thrilling, unnerving read. The characters were realistic. The plot was gripping and fast-paced. Run, do not walk, out to get this fab book.
Thank you NetGalley.

This story is a multi faceted story about a woman and the tribulations that she faces. There is an affair going on between Lily and her boss Harry. This book is much more than an affair though, it is one of grief and family drama. I will be on the lookout for more from Emma Woolf as I really enjoyed her style of writing.

*Thanks so much to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Thanks to Netgalley, Amberjack Publishing and the author for an advanced copy of this novel.

The Years after You is a touching story about love, family, death and what happens after an affair is over.

When Lily began an affair with Harry she knew he could never be hers, she could never stand to break up a family.
She didn't mean to become the other woman but Harry has fallen out of love with his wife and deeply in love with Lily.
Things begin to spiral out of control when Harry's wife Pippa finds out about the affair. Harrys internal conflict between his love for Lily and unwillingness to leave his wife and his two boys sends him into a worsening depression and eventually leads to his suicide, unknowingly leaving Lily behind pregnant with his child.

Whilst Lily's world is rocked by Harry's death and the birth of Stella, she is also surprised by a letter from her father who abandoned her family when she was a small child.
Knowing Stella will grow up with no father, Lily is determined to meet her own but worries this will cause conflict with her mother and three siblings who have all been hurt by their fathers mysterious dispaperance.

This book is beautifully written.
Told from multiple perspectives we are allowed to see into the minds of the scorned wife and the loving mistress and how they cope with the affair, Harry's death, and their grief afterwards.

What I loved about this book is that the author passes no judgements on any of the characters and instead let's their emotions speak for themselves. We do not see the 'jealous wife' pitted against the 'temptress lover' or a tale of revenge many other books surrounding affairs rely on. Instead we get an honest exploration into the affects of betrayal, dishonestly and grief after you lose someone you love, whether you loved them for 2 years or 20.

We learn about Pippa's suspicions and eventual discovery of the affair through a series of devastating blog posts. Although I don't really like this style as I find it lacks depth and who really keeps a blog about their husbands suspected infidelity, it is successful in allowing us insight into Harry's wife's emotional rollercoaster that is essential to the novel.

This book was a very quick read for me, I found it very simple in a good way. It was an honest discussion on love, desire, heartbreak and family, a very beautiful story of what comes after the affair.
Heart breaking yet heartwarming, I could not recommend this novel enough to anyone who likes romance or family novels.

Reading this book demonstrates the fraility of human nature and how love and control are intertwined. Although I found the book well written and it certainly captured my imagination i also found it disturbing. The charaters are all very real and the reader gets the sense that they all know where they are going in life. How wrong can you be?

The author shows how mental illness can easily be disguised and how it is so easy to misread the signs of others every day behaviour. Mistaking neediness for love i guess is a common human failing. Although at one stage the reader gets a sense that several lives have been ripped apart it is interesting to read how they all manage to rebuild their lives after the death of the central character.

Overall I enjoyed the book but it isn't a read for escapism!

This was an absolutely beautiful, emotional story that grabbed me right from the first page. It is the story of the far reaching effects of an extramarital affair on everyone near and far to those involved. But it is so much more, I can’t even begin to say how much I enjoyed this book. The emotions I felt as I was reading about depression, suicide, love affairs, loneliness, abandonment, and on and on. It was so beautifully written. It was sad, yet it was hopeful. I highly recommend this!
Thank you to Amberjack Publishing and Netgalley for the advanced digital review copy!

A decent portrayal of what’s inside the minds of the betrayed wife and the other woman. Digs very deep into the hearts of the three people involved in an affair.

The Years After You follows the story of Lily, a single woman involved in an affair with her boss, and the fallout for all parties involved. Emma Woolf does a great job weaving the story together from all of the character’s different viewpoints, Lily, Harry, and Harry’s wife Pippa. I felt as though I sympathized with each character during their narration periods and though it felt like Lily should be a villain in the story, her character was likable and showed a lot of growth throughout the book. I’d highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a deeper, more emotional read. It does address some heavier topics such a alcoholism and mental illness.

'There’s something going on. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but Harry’s been acting weird all evening. And there’s something else- the house feels different.'

Relationships truly are a mystery, Lily’s is that much more complicated as ‘the other woman’. Desire takes us where it will, Lily knows this better than anyone when she falls in love with her boss married Harry, twenty years her senior. He isn’t in love with his wife anymore, she isn’t giving him what he needs anymore but isn’t it always ease to poke another person’s ‘dead’ marriage with a stick, to commiserate with your lover, doesn’t it act as a spell to ward off logic? Pippa is Harry’s wife, Pippa who is in her mid forties and feels every bit of her age, who senses what she doesn’t know, feels Harry pulling away, checked out emotionally, going through the motions. She knows something is off but isn’t seeing the whole puzzle, not yet. Isn’t sure of her doubts, but they are growing. Inside Harry resents Pippa, posting about their ‘happy’ family on social media, his marriage feels like a web he is caught in, desperate to understand where the carefree, beautiful woman she once was went. Of course here I think, she grew older, life’s demands pull at us, in any long term relationship, married or not, it’s hard to keep things fresh, the intimacy in living together pulls us close but too, it can be very unromantic, that’s life. When you have children, of course attention is divided and time is harder to corral.

Harry wants to be a good man, he loves his children but he feels alive again with Lily. He fell for the much younger Lily against his will, it isn’t some cheap thrill for him, and it’s taking an emotional toll. This love he has for her is enough to risk being caught, bringing her into his own home! All I could think was, does he want a confrontation, in a sense forcing Lily into solidifying her feelings, their relationship? This time they get away with it, but Harry doesn’t want to get away with it. He would give up everything for her. For Harry there must be a painful ending to reach the joyful beginning if he is to have Lily in his life, he must give up his wife, but what about his boys? Harry does torture himself, Lily soon becomes all he can feel!

Pippa is tracking Harry’s lies, people don’t lie unless there are secrets. He is no longer making an effort in their family. She has become the invisible wife, it can’t possibly be her insecurities, she sees him on the phone late at night, he is more often than not late from work, she can no longer ignore what is right in front of her face. But there is fear too in facing the ugly, brutal truth of no longer being wanted, loved. When the confrontation comes, he won’t be able to blame her, to tell her she is just ‘overeating’. Her words drift over cyberspace, her only comfort is through the followers of her blog who check on her. Just how much of her life, her marriage to Harry has been a lie? Is she to see things end? How much time does she need to get used to the idea of divorce? She isn’t the one who wants her family destroyed! She didn’t sign up for that. Should she just remain on the periphery of her own marriage hoping against hope that Harry will love her again, should she allow herself to die inside because he is unhappy and just get used to the idea?

Lily has allowed her life to revolve around her beloved Harry and stealing any time she can with him, always at his convenience, because it isn’t easy for a married father to get away. But what will happen if/when she has him fully to herself? Isn’t there safety too in a relationship that offers you freedom, the refreshing comfort of distance? What happens when you realize you don’t fully know the man you’ve entered into an affair with? That you aren’t privy to the same man as his wife is?

We stumble into love, fall in and out of it… it’s always thrilling at the start, when the dew hasn’t been wiped from our eyes, before we’ve uncovered flaws, and with affairs like Harry and Lily’s, you are not fully engaged in each other’s lives, there is protection in the bubble of your love. It’s not being tested in the way of family, friends, children and outside influences chipping away at your love for each other. Some do stay when they fall out of love in their own marriages, be it for the children, due to finances, their own inertia, their cowardice, out of loyalty and sometimes they fall back in love. Sometimes it’s not about your spouse, it’s your own funk that distorts reality. Even if you leave for another woman/man, if it’s internal suffering, that goes with you too.

In Lily’s case, her sister tells her ‘you’re the free agent’ but in reality, that’s not true when you get entangled in another’s life, and allow them to help you. You have involved yourself, there is always the risk of it all coming crashing down when other people can be hurt.

For Harry he doesn’t see a solution, stay… leave… nothing is as it could be. He carries a heavy depression, but maybe it isn’t about Lily or Pippa maybe an affair is a catalyst. He is conflicted to the point of breakdown. His emotions are running away from him, he isn’t maintaining his calm, and there will be consequences for them all.

This is more about what remains in the aftermath of an affair. How things fall apart, or come together, what happens to those left behind to salvage whatever they can from the person they loved. It is an exploration of where we place blame and how we move on. I feel the story somehow is more about Lily, particularly towards the middle when we learn about her own abandoned family and her father Claude. Part two feels like another life entirely, and maybe that’s the point.

Can you answer the question “why do some people just pick up an leave”? Hmmm. Human beings are complicated wrecks sometimes. We often go against our better judgement and let our hearts take the lead. Love is a risk like anything else, even the best relationships can wither and die as much as the most ill advised ones can surprise us all and last a lifetime. Love can be found in the most unexpected places, even after you’ve lost hope.

Publication Date: October 8, 2019

Amberjack Publishing

First, thank you the NetGalley, Emma Woolf, and Amberjack Publishing for the advanced copy of The Years After You. Not to give to much away, but never did I think that I would enjoy reading a story about a couple having an affair, let alone end up rooting for the mistress. The way that Emma Woolf tells the story of main character Lily, you can’t but help but understand her position and want to see the best turn out for her. Also, as much as the reader should probably not like Harry, the man in the middle, you can’t help but feel sorry for him. This story takes you on a roller coaster of emotions and up and downs with the characters, but in the end definitely gives everyone a much deserved and satisfying ending. I highly recommend this book.

The Years after You is about illicit romance, suicide, healing, and moving on. Harry is married but having an affair with coworker Lily. His wife suspects and then finds out for certain. And then she does nothing, which makes her character wishy washy. Harry takes matters into his own hands which changes everyone's lives. Lily encounters a surprise of her own and a,so reconnects with her long lost father., adding more change to her life.
The writing was decent. I thought many of the characters were just one dimensional. The novel is very casual about Harry and Lily's affair, like it was of no consequence. I also thought the reintroduction of the father, who'd just walked out on his family, to be reunited many years later with acceptance and forgiveness by the abandoned children was pretty unbelievable.

Well written and in an interesting way by incorporating all the main characters in the first person. Characters were well developed and storyline progressed fluidly.

I enjoyed “The Year’s After You” from the beginning, however, as the story unfolded I fell in love with the characters their beauty and their flaws. There are no knights in shining armor, perfect parents or evil seducers, there is just life and the tangled web we can find ourselves in. This book beautifully depicts human relationships. Just because we love someone it doesn’t mean we can stay.
Don’t get me wrong I enjoy boy meets girl books boy loves girl and girl loves boy and they all live happily ever after books. But this story stands apart from others because the flaws and frailty of the characters make them real.

I enjoyed this book. It was a good, uncomplicated read, with well developed characters and a clear narrative arc. I found some of it a little superficial though, and it appeared to have been written by someone with no experience of babies at all. But, a good lighthearted read, perfect for the summer.

This is my first read by Emma Woolf. It took me a little while to get into the story line, but then I was hooked. Lily and Harry are having a affair after meeting at work. Harry's wife, Pippa, has worried something was happening with Harry but just can't put her finger on what is happening. But she finally figured out Lily was more than a colleague. This book is so much more than a book about an affair. It delves into what happens with the wife and the mistress after a suicide. How do the parties cope and what becomes of his memory? This is about grief and moving on. Pippa's last letter to Harry had me in tears, such a moving piece. There is a romantic component to this piece, as well as family drama. I found this book to be a fairly easy read. I finished it very quickly, over the period of a few days. I highly recommend this book to others and will be looking for other works by Emma Woolf. Special thanks to NetGalley and Amberjack Publishing for the advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

#TheYearsAfterYou #NetGalley

This was a good book but I do t think it’s the best of Emma Woolf! I think she’s just getting started. This book was predictable but an easy read. I rate it a 3.2!

Two women, one man. One married to him, the other is the mistress. Follow along as Harry, Pippa, and Lily navigate through this tumultuous time of betrayal and excitement.

Harry has started this exciting relationship with Lily, a woman from his office. There is only one thing, Harry is married, but Lily doesn't care. They steal time away from his wife and the office to be with each other. As the relationship goes on, Harry falls more and more in love with Lily. Pippa starts to realize that there is something going on but has no evidence. Soon, Harry starts to spiral out of control, trying to deal with his emotions and navigate his relationships between his wife and his mistress.

The Years After You by Emma Woolf is an engaging novel that revolves around the love between Harry and his mistress, Lily, along with Harry and his wife Pippa. Harry suffers from alcoholism along with drug abuse. His mental health problems become worse as the novel progresses. As if these themes are not enough there is also an exploration of what happens to all the characters in this novel after Harry is no longer with them. Love and loss are a critical theme running through this novel. What happens to us once someone we loved is no longer with us.? How do we go on and how do we deal with betrayal and pick up the pieces of lives scattered in the aftermath of a loss of life ? By all accounts this would appear to be a very depressing story but that is not the case. Although there are definitely serious topics discussed there is also a renewal of the human spirit that is in all of us. We see this as we watch characters recover and attempt to move on in the midst of tragedy. In addition to the theme of loss there is also the topics of a second loves, loneliness, the spirit of forgiveness revolving around a father who after many years is reintroduced into a now grown family that he abandoned , and a unique and new love story that blossoms for several characters after the loss of Harry. This easy read covers all these many topics. I would have liked to have seen a more realistic ending to some of the characters’ journeys but over all this is a fine novel . Any novel that makes you think about what happens to the characters and how their life choices effect their worlds is worth reading. This novel is entertaining and thought provoking at the same time .