Very interesting take on a love story. Some great characters here, especially Nurse Angel. I liked the way that coming out from hospital was portrayed, its all so easy to see it as a celebration, when in many cases it's a shock. Can you really fall in love without seeing someone?

Alfie has been in hospital recovering from a horrific car crash for months. Alice has been badly burnt in a work accident and will not let anyone see her, except for the hospital staff. When these two patients are assigned to beds next to one another Alfie offers his had in friendship which Alice very slowly accepts.

This is such a beautiful moving novel. I loved every word.

I loved the idea for the story but sorry it wasn't for me and I really couldn't get into it, and found it a bit too sad. I prefer stories to be a bit more uplifting.

Grief, loneliness, pain and finding your way back from the darkness are the theme of this book. A bit bleak and depressing for me so couldn't fully engage with the book. It was an alright read. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me review this book.

Before I Saw You

I want to thank the publishers and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book to review.

“𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘦’𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘦’𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵”.

With his bright and bubbly personality, Alfie is the heart and soul of the hospital wards he has been in for months, recovering from an accident. When he hears he will be getting a new neighbour he looks forward to becoming friends. However he quickly realises that his neighbour wishes to stay hidden in the shadows.

Alice has been severely burnt in a work accident and cannot bring herself to see the scars that play as a painful reminder of all that she has lost. Keeping the curtains closed around her, she fights a battle of pain and loss of self identity. This doesn’t stop Alfie from trying to break down her walls and show her that there is light in the darkest of times.

In a world where looks are perceived to be the most important aspect of a person, this heartwarming book shows you otherwise. Alfie and Alice are battling their own demons yet together they have an unspoken understanding. Alfie was the shining light of the story, a man who often hides his pain behind his smile, he taught me that love and hope can stem from words of kindness and acts of compassion. Alice is truly thrown through a roller coaster of emotions and we witness her fight, firstly against herself then the world and finally against her fears. This is a poignant and emotional book that I can’t wait for the rest of the world to read.

I requested Before I Saw You after reading the synopsis. The story outline grabbed my attention - two hospital inpatients, forging a friendship through bedside curtain etc. It sounded great.

Unfortunately, the story didn’t fully deliver for me. It seemed to go very slow in parts and I wasn’t fully invested in either of the main characters. I also struggled to comprehend how the patient mix were all allocated to the same ward??

There were some nice elements of the story, and I really appreciated the authors direction with a love story not based on appearances or traditional attraction.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review 📚

3.5

Alice Gunnersley has been badly injured in an office fire. She’s in the Moira Gladstone Ward at St Francis Hospital for rehabilitation. In the next bed is Alfie Mack who has had a leg amputated following a dreadful car crash. The story is told in alternating points of view which works really well.

I like the interesting and contrasting personalities between the outwardly chatty, cheerful and outgoing Alfie and the solitary, fiercely independent and career driven Alice. However, they are both in physical and emotional pain and I like how they draw that out of each other. The characters are really good (except Alice’s mother) and there is wonderful camaraderie on the ward with Alfie it’s epicentre. This is a good examination of healing, it’s sweet in places, very cheesy at others and yes, it’s predictable although that’s not an implied criticism at all!

My reservations lie in the fact that it drags on a bit in places and gets a bit repetitive yet the ending is abrupt and rushed which is a real pity. We build up to this ending and then it’s over in a flash!

Overall, an enjoyable, quick read

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK/Transworld for the arc for an honest review.

This is probably my least favourite book of the year, in that had I not felt honour-bound to finish it because I got it for free in return for a fair review, I would have abandoned it before I got a third of the way into it. Mawkish, preachy, saccharine, with a simpering goody-two-shoes ‘male lead’ (I thought of him as that because the novel felt written purely with a weepie movie in mind a la One Day,Last Christmas etc) who insists on being more empathetic than everyone else. Wonderful nurse? Alfie will care more than you! Devoted wife of nonagenarian? Alfie will need more comfort than you will when your husband of 70 years dies, even though Alfie’s only known him a few weeks. Alfie will be instantly the most inspirational and important patient in the kingdom and everyone will report to him! I wanted to slap him.
But even more, I wanted to slap Alice who refuses to get out of bed and inconveniences the whole ward due to her refusal to be seen, like a diva. Why not just rely on the decency and discretion of others? Poking her hand between the curtains every once in a while just seemed comical, instead of poignant. Just wear a hoodie for goodness sakes! Dark glasses? A surgical mask? It seemed so attention-seeking.
Not to mention I couldn’t see a ward that would normally be shared by a burn victim, an amputee and a 92 yr old. Wards are usually at least vaguely relevant to the injuries of the patients. If Alice was terribly disfigured, she’d probably be in a single room or a burns ward.
I was actively rooting for Alice to die in surgery so that alone should explain my bad review.

First of all, many thanks to the publishers and the author for providing an eARC of the book!

I am very glad that I read this book, and do recommend to read it to anyone) The main characters were developed very well, with different points of view. Some parts were sad, some were heartbreaking and others were warming))
Happy Reading Everyone and Stay Safe!

I thought that this one was ok I did find myself speed reading through some parts but overall it was an ok chic lit.

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

“Before I saw you” by Emily Houghton is a raw and sobering story, about grief and the long journey back to loving yourself, after a tragic accident that leaves you feeling like less than who you used to be.

It takes a lot to learn to love yourself again, enough to let someone else love you too. And Alice and Alfie's story starts in a hospital ward, with a plastic curtain between them. They talk to each other, and hold hands between their beds, but they have never seen each other.

The pace of this book was quite slow, but I think it perfectly paralleled Alice and Alfie’s slowly growing relationship and each of their personal healing process. There isn’t an actual plot to the book, it’s centered around the characters and all their different relationships, as well as their own development. Although this book is promoted as a romance, readers shouldn’t expect the typical feel-good romcom. “Before I saw you” is painful, bitter-sweet and often frustrating. But I believe the author wrote it this way on purpose because these emotions elicited in the reader are the exact same emotions felt by the main characters as they recover from their wounds. Despite all the depressing bits, I still loved the romance and how sweet it was.

The writing and alternating points of view reminded me of “The Flatshare” by Beth O’Leary, which I loved. There’s no doubt that I enjoyed reading “Before I saw you”, it was such a touching book and I fully empathized with the characters. I definitely recommend this book.

I LOVED this book. It still met all the standard rhythms of romantic novels but in a very unexpected and very different way - and with the dual first person narrative you got twice the angst and twice the happiness.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced readers copy.

"Our scars are simply the marks of our stories. They show we've lived our life, and most of all that we have survived it. Don't hide your story away in the shadows"

If I am being honest this book is pretty slow.

After an fire in her building Alice, having suffered terrible burns finds herself in the hospital recovering, physically and mentally scarred from the events she finds herself not talking. In stark contrast to her bed neighbour behind the curtain, an amputee following a car accident Alfie, who doesn’t stop talking. The two eventually find themselves becoming friends, talking about their traumatic experiences and slowly falling for each other only thing is they have never actually seen each other.

Look the book is essentially just a lot of sitting around and talking. It takes a heavy emphasis on internal healing and hence there it was heavy on the internal monologue. Whilst it is obviously a very important topic to deal with, recovering and learning to love yourself again it felt very longwinded at times and made it a bit hard for me to get through. I did enjoy how rich the characters backstories were, it really made you feel for them and added to their character a lot.

It was lacking in the romance area. In the time they had fallen for each other it honestly wasn’t that convincing that they had. They had had a few conversations and held hands once or so and all of a sudden they were in love. I get that the whole concept was meant to be them falling in love without ever having even seen each other I just don’t know if it was really pulled off. Moreover you read a book which is the most slow burn romance you have ever read for them to not even kiss??

Overall though the characters were pretty good, it was quite funny and I did enjoy myself reading it at times I just wished it wasn’t as slow and repetitive.

Two traumatised people fall in love. Alfie and Alice find themselves in adjacent hospital beds. Both are badly injured, but Alice's curtain always remains drawn round her bed because she cannot bear to be seen. She has no visitors. Curious Alfie tries to draw her out and they start to talk. Love all the different characters on the ward and how crosswords draw them together. The warmth of Nurse Angles, Alfie's Mum and Alice's friend Sarah is delightful. An unusual love story between two lonely people who would never have met if not for their accidents.

This was a really good read and I think my favorite thing about this book was how unique it was. It's not your typical falling in love tale. The characters are put in bad situations but interact in a way we're not used to seeing in other fiction. Finally, the setting. I felt like I was actually IN the hospital watching these scenes unfold. Tremendous book.

Really loved this from the first page. The premise is different and pulled off so well. The back and forward between the two main characters kept me reading eager to find out what happened. I could actually envisage the hospital ward and all the patients. Alice and Alfie were both endearing characters that I was rooting for throughout. The only negative with this book is it finished too early I would love to read more. Maybe there will be a follow up.

A well written, likeable read in an unusual setting and about an unusual pair of characters. As a rehab nurse by profession, I left my scrubs on the hanger and enjoyed the book for what it was. An absorbing romance.

This is a stellar love story, battling against adversity, pain, fear and loss it seems like Alfie and Alice will never set eyes on each other let alone take their tentative friendship further.
Set almost completely in hospital, behind drawn curtains the book touches on many aspect of life changing injury, death and depression but also true friendship, support and love.
All of the characters are exceptionally well written- they almost walk, hobble or hop off the pages before you as you read and the personalities are beautifully described, as are the emotions of staff and patients alike.

Few books move me to shed a tear but this one did in several places.

Loved this!!
Who would have thought that a romance could bloom through the curtains around a hospital bed, , or that an entire story set solely in a hospital ward could hold your attention so well that you couldn’t put the book down.
Unusual in that the characters never see each other and fall in love with each other’s personalities ,not looks.
Loved ALL the characters, even the nosy Sandra,
I cried at the tragedies, I laughed at the camaraderie on the ward and my heart broke a little when I thought the ending was going to be very different. I will most definitely be seeking out more by this author.

I loved this book. It was really sweet . The characters of Angie and Alfie are very well written and likeable , I'd definitely read more from this writer,