I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Love Is... by Haley Hill
Dating Agency doyenne Ellie Rigby always thought that helping people find love with the hard part…
But now she’s all loved up with husband Nick and has hundreds of matchmaking successes under her belt, Ellie ought to know all there is to know about love.
As her struggles to get pregnant put strain on her marriage, and her matchmaking service starts losing clients, Ellie realises she has so much more to learn. So setting off on a global research trip, Ellie makes it her mission to find out what makes love last forever, and whether it’s enough to save her own romance.
In Love Is, we meet Ellie Rigby who not only runs an international dating agency but she is married and struggling to conceive with her husband, Nick.
During a board meeting, her co-worker Dominic makes a pitch to take the company in a direction Ellie is not interested in, so they can increase profits for the investors. When Ellie comes up with the idea of turning the staff into dating psychologist so when couples meet they stay connected, Dominic comes up with a list of experts that requires her to leave London so she can meet with them. She is not interested in that either.
When Nick announces he has been offered a position in New York, Ellie is not happy with leaving London so the question is “will she follow her husband?”.
This was a fun read with lot’s of humor, issues with love, divorce, and fertility but I did have an issue with something the author did when it came to having a person show up in a country when the character had no conversation with them to know where they were, twice. Other than that, it was fun to follow Ellie’s journey to find the answer to the question “what makes a happy marriage?”.
I recommend you buy this book and I would read another book by this author.
Reviewed by: Linda C
I rolled my eyes. ‘It can’t be all bad.’
‘It’s not all bad,’ he replied, ‘but it won’t make you happy. Just like marriage won’t make you happy. And kids certainly won’t make your marriage happy.’ He paused for a moment, seemingly to wipe a child’s orifice, then continued. ‘If you kept abreast of the latest research, as you should, you would know that a recent study showed a couple’s happiness decreases proportionately with the birth of each child.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Who conducted that study?’ I said. ‘Was it you, interviewing yourself?’
He laughed. ‘We’re conditioned to think we need to have children in order to be content, when in fact, if we bother to look at the evidence, the opposite is true.’ He let out a deep sigh. ‘Why else do you think Lucy went back to work and left me looking after the little buggers?’
I giggled. ‘You love it really.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I really don’t. I love them, of course, but I don’t especially enjoy sacrificing my every human right in the name of positive parenting.’ He moved away from the phone to confiscate some crayons then continued. ‘Freud said that our need to procreate is driven by a fear of death.’ He went on to adopt a lady therapist voice. ‘Do you fear death, Eleanor Rigby?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘The only one who should fear death is you, if you don’t shut up.’
He was still laughing when I hung up..
I checked the timer on my phone. Twenty seconds to go.
I flopped down on the bed again, feeling the weight of my body sink into the mattress. Nick said he would love me no matter what.
Would he really, though? I wondered. Even if I could never give him the sandy-haired children he’d always wanted: the son he could hoist up onto his shoulders and teach him what it means to be a man, or the little girl with pigtails reaching for his hand, eyes wide with adoration. What if it was just us? For the rest of our lives. Our union having no greater purpose than to provide comfort to each other in old age. We’d play bridge, grow vegetables and potter around the house. And then we’d die.
Ten seconds to go.
I burst back into the bathroom. Before I reached for the test, I stopped and looked up at the ceiling, retracting my earlier complaint to the Almighty and substituting it with a pledge to reinstate my monthly charitable donations.
I snatched the test from the pot and stared at the screen on the side. The words registered straight away.
Not pregnant.
I looked again, just in case I was hallucinating the ‘Not’. I shook it and then held it up to the light. I knew there was nothing I could do to change it. I threw it in the bin, along with the backup test and then went to get ready for work.
Haley Hill is a fresh new voice in romantic fiction who has previously found success in the self-publishing world. Prior to launching her fiction career, Haley launched and ran the Elect Club dating agency – and is an expert in all things dating! Haley lives in South London with her husband and twin daughters.
Social info:
@HaleyHillNow
@HQStories
#LoveIs
Amazon Buy link:
http://amzn.to/2cgb4Y3
