Was too much like PS I love you for my liking. Didn't feel there was anything to make it feel original. Also really struggled to connect with the character - she seemed so immature and then to be reminded she was 36 was slightly confusing.

Chloe and Jack have been together for five blissful months. They vacationed together, moved in together, and began planning the rest of their lives. Until one day, it all comes crashing down when Jack is killed in an accident. Chloe is left to pick up the pieces of their life together, left with a fridge full of reminders of what they had planned.

Love, Almost is an important story that explores the grief of losing someone very close to you. This book made me cry, but also made me laugh quite often. The main character, Chloe, seems very real and it is easy to find empathy for her as she navigates this hard journey. This is definitely a book to be on the look out for!

Well, after reading reviews from other readers, I must be crazy. The book is OK, but it was not for me.
I don't know what happened. I found the story a little bit slow, honestly. I didn't connect with Chloe. And everyone's attitude, people around her, was disappointing.
I reckon that in another moment of my life, I would have found this book to be fantastic. But not now. Sorry.

Chloe and Jack have experienced a whirlwind romance, five months of love and then it’s gone. Chloe then tries to find the real reason they were in love and deal with her grief.
Whilst this will appeal to many, I struggled to get into it and it wasn’t the right book for me.
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book. Its an emotional but uplifting story which had me in tears .I look forward to reading more from Hayley

“I reckon I love you, Chloe Roscoe.”

Chloe Roscoe is head over heels for her new boyfriend, Jack Carmichael. However, their sure to be love-story, is tragically cut short when Jack is killed in an accident. Chloe is devastated and isn’t sure how to move on with Jack so abruptly ripped from her life. They had recently moved in together and things were just beginning to unfold for them. Chloe finds herself in an awkward space of not really knowing Jack fully but fully knowing she loved him with all of her being. She can’t seem to find a place to fit in, with him gone. She finds out his family and some friends didn’t even know about her. She attends his funeral and the picture that is painted of him, isn’t the Jack she knew. In an attempt to quell her pain and try and find some peace, she sets out to check off some of their to-do’s, without him. Will she find what she needs? What is life without Jack? Can she learn to move on and lovingly leave him in her past?

This was a good story about having your life take an abrupt, unexpected turn and learning how to rebuild, brick by brick. A story of how the most earth shattering thing can happen, but the world keeps turning and you must find a way to go on. And sometimes, even in the darkness, you can find some rays of sunshine that get you through to the next ray of sunshine, until you are fully in the light, again. I thought it was going to have a more romantic side to it than it ended up having, but I actually enjoyed how it all turned out. I really liked Chloe and felt connected to her. The other characters weren’t as developed but they were all complimentary to the story. I would definitely recommend this read and will be looking for more books by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley & Avon Books UK for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. I wholeheartedly enjoyed it!

“I reckon I love you, Jack Carmichael.”

"I reckon I love you, Chloe Roscoe"

OH. GOD. This line broke me. The significance of these words...

What would you do if the person you're with suddenly passes away while still in the honeymoon phase of your relationship? What would you feel like when you find out his family doesn't know anything about you or that you have been their dead son's secret? How do you stay cool when everybody tells you that your short-lived relationship shouldn't have that much impact in your life? How do you move on when the love you thought was blazing is suddenly in questioned and you can't get your answers because the only one that could give them to you has died? This is Chloe Roscoe's story.


I gotta say, this book started out slow, but I get it — you can't hurry up your grief. This is a very slow process that needs to take it's own time. When one dies, something inside us breaks that nothing can ever fix. This is a tale of grief, family, love and most importantly self-discovery. I love that the story's flow here is so organic. Chloe is such a great character, so strong and hopeful! It breaks my heart to find out what the title means now that I've finished the book. Hayley Doyle has done a wonderful job telling this inspiring story.


This novel is a must-read if you have enjoyed Josie Silver's "The Two Lives of Lydia Bird"


(Many thanks to Netgalley and Avon Books UK for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!)

This sweet, sad romance hit the spot on a cold fall day. Chloe is desperately in puppy love with her new boyfriend and dreams of spending her life with him.... when he dies. Her bags aren’t even unpacked yet. She spends the rest of the novel attempting to derive meaning from their relationship- and her own life. This book reminded me a lot of “In Another Life” and “The Next Five Years.” Thanks to netgalley and Avon Books UK for the ARC!

Love Almost is a story about grief and what could have beens.

Chloe and Jack haven't been together for long. Chloe practically just moved into his London flat with him after they had had a long-distance relationship for some time. She hasn't even met his parents yet, but that changes one Friday evening after work. Jack's father has devastating news, Jack is dead.

It was a rather slow read for me and I kept waiting for something special to happen. I skimmed after about 30%.

Love, Almost by Hayley Doyle a devastating five-star read. I have just finished another emotional read and then wasn’t sure if I should start this one as I didn’t know if I had any more tears in me, but I am so glad I did. I don’t know if it was that my husband moved from Liverpool to live and marry me after we had only been dating a short couple of months, so I could imagine what he would have felt if he had lost me like Chloe loses her Jack, I could understand the depth of her love in such a short time span, you don’t spend much time together physically but you do emotionally. I had a similar relationship years ago, very intense and passionate and then suddenly gone and you do feel lost, you haven’t known them since school, or all of their life so everyone who has looks at you with incredulity like your grief isn’t as powerful as theirs even though you feel it is. Maybe I identified with Chloe too deeply, but this story consumed me and was just what I needed as I have honestly been in a horrid slump in our second lockdown in Wales, and even though this second one is short, there is no clear end coming and I was having a wobble, watching Chloe through her voyage gave me a sense of peace, how was I feeling so wobbly when I haven’t lost the love of my life, next year will come soon and life will be back to a more normal way, but when you lose someone life does go back, but it’s never truly normal. Maybe it was the northernisms of this story that added an extra layer to me, as I may have been here for years, but I’m still a northern lass at heart. I know that some people wont enjoy this story, but for me it is easily one of the best I have read this year.

I loved this book so much! It was a bit of a slow starter but the persistence was worth it in the end.
After the first few chapters I just couldn't put it down and flew through it.
Every character although to a point extreme in their traits is so relatable too!

Such a cute and fun read! Perfect distraction in life right now. Really enjoyable characters and story and hard to put down! Really really cute!

Anything that smells romcom is definitely ending up on my TBR because I am a sucker for everything love .Huge thanks to Avon Books for hooking a girl up. Firstly having to read this book shows that I am such an adult and likely to have cried because it hit me in the feels. It tells the story of Chloe and Jack this lovely couple that is hit by such a tragedy after only 5 months of dating. How does one move on and find peace ,love and comfort when someone you love is gone. This book was written so well and I am definitely grateful that I got to read it. Did I cry? Of course but lesson I took is love people while they still here

As I was already a big fan of Hayley Doyle, I was really looking forward to reading this book. It is so cleverly written that I felt like there were times throughout the book that I felt I was there with Chloe. I understand how grief can make you sometimes make silly decisions such as jetting off to Thailand by yourself! But we were with her every step of the way! I also understand that no matter how long you have known someone, after they have passed away it can make you question many things, including how well you knew them after all and what their wishes would have been. I think Chloe’s character is very true to life and was heartfelt. I just wish I knew what happened next with Layla’s dad! I feel Chloe deserved a happy ending!

Love, Almost is a story about love, loss and trying to move on with your life. Chloe and Jack are in love when Jack suddenly dies in an accident which leaves Chloe living in a fog with her grief. But is it from the loss of the love they had or what might have been. Chloe struggles with this because their relationship was only 5 months old and she is overwhelmed by what ifs. To help cope and move on she starts to check off a to-do list of everything she and Jack were planning to do. This is a heartwarming story that depicts one woman’s struggle to cope with the hardballs life throws at you and move on after a devastating loss and realize life does go on.

Chloe has been seeing Jack for a while and has not long moved in with him. Although not together for very long she realises that she is in love with him- could he be the one? They had a fantastic holiday in Thailand where he asked her to move in. One day at their flat, which Jack rents off his parents, Chloe is rather startled by his father's appearance. He has some devastating news- Jack is dead. He has been hit by a van in an accident and died at the scene. His parents don’t know about Chloe being anything more than a one night stand and she is pretty much left to her own devices. To start with she only tells a close friend and tries to carry on normal life as best she can. She realises at the funeral that she hardly knows anyone and they don’t realise that she was Jack’s girlfriend, it's as if she doesn't exist in their world, yet Jack was the world to her. This is the story of how she got over the months following his death. As many others have said about the line about taking pictures of toes and glasses of wine in the sunset- don’t -take them of the person you love as you really don’t know how many tomorrows you may have. A wonderful read of picking yourself up and getting on with life despite all the turmoil inside. How, yes, it changes you but the world does go on turning and you with it whether you like it or not and that there is sunshine after the rain. A wonderful read to make you think.
(rest of links on publication)

Description

Chloe and Jack are soulmates. But life has other plans…

Chloe is deliriously in love for the very first time. But when Jack, her boyfriend of five months, is killed in a tragic accident, she is left reeling. Their relationship was amazing – but it never really had the chance to get started.

Grieving but determined, Chloe decides to live life for the both of them and makes her way through the list of things they’d planned to do together – this time on her own.

My thoughts

The loss of a partner – and the person who has lost them “regaining their life” and finding some sort of meaning without them – isn’t a new subject for books to explore. Except Doyle looks at it from a new angle, exploring this loss not only of a partner but of a relationship- and of a love – that was just getting started.

Love, Almost centres around Chloe, a thirty-something woman who has uprooted her life around Jack, her boyfriend of five months, only for a tragic accident to take his life. I found Chloe relatable, not just because she’s from Liverpool like me (and everyone who can has made fun of my accent) but because she wasn’t sure of what to do with her life. Whilst I haven’t lost a partner like her, I think the loss of a relationship that potentially could’ve been something is something a lot of people can relate to.

I think the way Love, Almost looks at grief and loss is spot on. So many books focus on getting their main character back to “normal” after something bad happens but Doyle’s portrayal isn’t like that at all. Yes, she does try to find herself throughout the novel, but it doesn’t take away the sense of loss she feels. I’m glad Doyle showed both sides, the fact that you can (to a degree) “get on with your life” and the fact that you constantly think about the loss – and the person – as well as what could’ve been.

Doyle’s description of place in Love, Almost is brilliant. I’ve only ever been to London once, but I think she captures the hustle and bustle of it perfectly. It was also nice to see the place I call home represented, making everything feel familiar. Her description even made me feel as though I’d been to Thailand before, from the rich description of food to the description of the weather, the scenery, little quirks. I think we all feel the urge to escape very strongly right now and Doyle definitely provides this escapism..without having to quarantine afterwards!

The one thing I disliked about the book was the fact that we didn’t actually get much of Jack’s character. Understandably, considering the fact he does die in a tragic accident very early into the book but I just wish Doyle had explored him a bit more – instead of Chloe assuming that would be how he felt or assuming what he’d do.

Regardless, I think Love, Almost will resonate in one way or another with a lot of us. It’s a story of love, loss and learning to live again.

Love, Almost will be published on 7 January, 2021.

I loved the premise of this one (even though it sounded heartbreaking). What happens when you meet the love of your life, the person who could be "the one", only to have them die before you get anywhere near your happily ever after? What is it like to grieve someone you only knew a short while, but wanted to spend forever with?

This is the story of Chloe and Jack. I loved Jack's character and could easily see how Chloe could fall for him. They were an adorable couple and seemed destined for a lovely life together before the tragedy strikes. After that, I don't know, things just fell flat for me.

I was ready for ugly crying and heartbreaking sadness, but unfortunately something just did not click. I don't know exactly what it was, and I know people grieve in different ways, but I was just not invested in Chloe or her version of grief. Parts of it felt very flippant to me.

I think it had potential to be so much more.

An emotional read which deals with grief and moving on. An interesting collection of characters most with their own bereavement in some form or other and their way of dealing with it. The main character, Chloe, was only five months into a relationship with Jack when he tragically died and the plot is around was he really 'the one', did he really love her. She has created her own bubble around her and some of her discoveries are brutal but real as she needed to face some harsh truths about herself along the way.

I adored the premise of this book, I myself am a sucker for death trope- however, I wasn’t a fan of the writing style. I felt it was rather cold and I couldn’t find myself being reeled in.

When informed of her boyfriends death, we are given no emotion and while I realise she’s partially in shock- to tell his grieving father she wanted a chocolate bar was disturbing, if anything.

The protagonist was, okay, easily forgettable but I did enjoy Jack.

I wouldn’t personally recommend this book or reread but it had an interesting plot.