Phyllis is a stereotypical 60s housewife until the twenty-something son of an old friend kisses her in the dark garden after dinner. Newly awake to the world, Phyllis makes a choice that defies all expectations of her as a wife and a mother. Nothing in these ordinary lives is so ordinary after all, it turns out, as the family’s upheaval mirrors the dramatic transformation of the society around them.

I got about half way through this book but was not able to finish. I found the pace quite slow and couldn't get into it.

its an interesting plot concept & it was enjoyable but not something that lasted in my memory. i needed more umph to make it memorable. i wouldn’t reread

Free Love was a gorgeous and insightful read. I very much enjoyed following Phyllis on her jour way of self-discovery. I also really liked all of the historical details, because it really made the book feel so real.

This was my first novel by this author and I was definitely intrigued, and will look forward to reading more by her.
The book takes place in 1960s London and follows, Phyllis, a middle aged married mother of two, who has a love affair with a much younger man; the son of some family friends.
While I didn't love the book I definitely enjoyed it, and it kept me interested enough that I would seek out more by this author.

Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

I tried reading this book and I could just not get into it. I wasn't for me. The story did not interest me and I found the characters flat.

FREE LOVE is set in 1967 London. Phyllis Fischer is a 40 year old mother of two children. Colette is a solemn young teen and the younger Hugh is clearly the Apple of his mother’s eye. Her husband Roger works in the Foreign Office and is a devoted family man.
One summer evening the twenty something son of a family friend is invited to dinner. Later that evening a mother of one of Hugh’s playmates calls saying her son came home with only one shoe. In order to appease the rather persistent woman, Nicky and Phyllis head out to the garden in search of a missing shoe. Despite the darkness the
shoe is found. Because of the darkness Nicky and Phyllis share a kiss.
Intrigued by this aloof young man Phyllis pays him a call setting in motion an unlikely relationship.
FREE LOVE is an interesting story that focuses on relationships, women’s roles and teenage angst. I enjoyed reading FREE LOVE. There is a bit of a twist but I think the reader was allowed to see that coming.
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for allowing me access to an advanced digital edition of this book.

This book was an absolute pleasure to read. Anything by Tessa Hadley is actually. I highly recommend this book.

Took me a while to settle into the story but once I did it was mostly smooth sailing. I wish that I had an audiobook to follow along with as the characters sometimes felt like they were behind a veil or slightly unreachable/difficult to connect to.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to love this one, but it just didn't grab me right away. Unfortunately my file access expired before I had a chance to give it another go.

This book was not for me. I found myself not very interested in reading it so it took me a while to get through. This may not bug other readers, but I couldn't get over the lack of quotation marks for the dialogue and I found that the narrative bounced around too frequently to the point where I sometimes got confused as to whose point of view I was reading.

I received an eARC from the publisher thru NetGalley for a review.

I really didn't enjoy this book and would likely have DNF'd it if it wasn't an ARC. Phyllis meets the teenage son of a friend of her husband's, immediately falls in love with him, starts an affair and leaves her family. The book was full of very selfish, screwed up characters, none of whom I liked. Phyllis had no concern for her young children. Overall very unlikable characters - almost all of them.

I really didn't enjoy it.

Tessa Hadley is a consummate stylist with the added gifts of not only being able to convey deep insights into character but to set her places precisely and convincingly. In this case, it seemed to me those talents were rather frittered on a story and characters that were less than compelling. It’s 1967. Phyllis (Phyl) is an attractive 40-ish housewife in the London suburbs, wife to a bigshot in the Foreign Office and mother to an intense, bookish teenage girl and a sunny younger son whose father thinks it’s time to send him to boarding school. Phyllis’s life runs along its stodgy ruts until one night the family hosts the 20-something son of old friends to dinner. When he kisses Phyl in the dark back garden, it’s as if an explosion wakes her out of a half-asleep state, and what she does next blows her family apart. I think her physical and intellectual awakening are meant to mirror the vast societal changes rumbling through society at large, but I just never really connected with her character. I was far more interested in Collette, the teenage daughter, who goes seriously off the rails in the wake of her mother’s behaviour, and as she turns 16 and is trying to figure out who she is and what she wants, starts ditching school and taking the train into London to hang out on the fringes of the exciting youth culture springing up.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for this ARC in return for my honest review.

The description sounded really interesting. But, the writing style wasn’t for me. A quarter of the way, I couldn’t continue. The characters didn’t stand out and the dialogues just didn’t work out. Unfortunately, this was a DNF. It wasn’t for me.

I am at a loss as to how to begin this review. FREE LOVE is my first Tessa Hadley novel. The synopsis sounds promising. My experience was not.

It is a story set in London in the 1960s with Phyllis, a homemaker experiencing a sexual awakening, as the narrator.

I had trouble connecting with the story due to the writing style. It is not a style I’m used to I suppose. The story feels old-fashioned and with a lot of filler. It is flat without any pizzazz to drive the plot. I found myself skimming more times than not, just to get to the good part. Lo and behold, I never found it.

The dialogue between characters is hard to follow as it is a series of dashes with no indication of who is speaking nor to whom.
The characters never felt authentic to me; they were bland and lackluster.

Alas FREE LOVE is not my cup of tea!

<i>I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher of this advanced digital copy for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for an honest review! All opinions expressed are my own. Upon publishing of this novel, I will also be posting my review to Amazon Canada.</i>

I really wanted to like this one as I enjoyed the premise but sadly that’s where it ended for me. I couldn’t relate to the characters and the story line didn’t really grab me. I had to DNF it. Thank you to NetGallery for this eARC.

Thanks to Random House Canada and NetGalley for a free Arc of this book in exchange for a review.

This is my first time reading this author and I went in with zero expectations. Tess Hadley does an excellent job writing full characters and allowing the reader to really get to know them however in this book I had a difficult time finding any empathy or identifying with any of them. I find my reading experience increases when I can connect with a character.

Tess Hadley really shines at bringing the 60's back to life and evoking the feeling of the summer of love. The reader gets a real sense of what London was like during the late 1960's and how women, in particular were changing, especially told through the voice of the mother and daughter of this novel. At times I found the writing a little over the top for my taste. Too many adjectives and descriptions. It seemed tedious and flowery.

Overall it's a quick read but I don't know if I will be grabbing another one of her books again. I would recommend reading this if someone is willing to lend it to you or grabbing it from your library.

I am so very sorry to say that I could not get through this book. I tried many many times through the last few weeks to get into it, but I just couldn’t. It isn’t often I DNF a book but sadly this is one of those moments.

I enjoyed the beginning of the book and the setting the author created, how she pulled the reader in to the home of the main family and thier life. I also felt the author did a great job of creating the characters and giving us a really good in-depth look and understanding of them. The different view points throughout first few chapters was excellent as it helped the reader really understand who these characters were. I had hope that would be enough to capture me. However I think I had difficulty because it all felt very cliché to me. I could tell you what was about to happen in the entire rest of the book by only getting 12% into it.

I think the main reason I had difficulties with this book was because to show someone was speaking the author chose to use a dash, as opposed to quotations, so it was difficult for me to follow the conversation between characters.There were also many moments of stream of consciousness thoughts and I think that’s where this book fully lost me. I believe it is this writing style that is just not for me.

I do want to thank Random House Canada and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It’s not often that I DNF a book but I could not connect with this one. The story itself was very interesting and I wanted to find out what would happen and where it would go but I couldn’t come around to the writing style. I found the descriptive writing to be a roller coaster. A mundane scene was overly described and important moments were skimmed over.
I made is 24% of the book because I really wanted to give it a shot
If you’re in to self-destructive characters and family drama, this might be the book for you! Unfortunately, it wasn’t for me.

Such strong writing from Hadley. I felt like this was very well crafted, though I did have some trouble connecting to the characters. I felt like some of their motivations were difficult for me to understand and therefore connect to. But that is why we read fiction, yes? To expand our horizons and learn about people experiencing different situations to us.