When she was almost seventeen, Rosie Draper locked eyes with a charismatic student called Peter during their first week at art college, changing the course of her life forever. Now, on the cusp of sixty-five and recently widowed, Rosie is slowly coming to terms with a new future. And after a chance encounter with Peter, forty-seven years later, they both begin to wonder ‘what if’…

Told with warmth, wit and humour, We’ll Always Have Paris is a charming, moving and uplifting novel about two people; the choices they make, the lives they lead and the love they share.

 

When I first got sent We’ll Always Have Paris, I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it. It is definitely not my usual read, but I found myself hooked almost immediately. The characters were surprisingly relatable, and the story they told was endearing and heartwarming.

We meet the protagonist, Rosie, at the start of the story, having recently lost her husband and trying to cope with her grief and still maintain family relationships and a small part of herself. She is an extremely likeable character, who teaches us that it is never too late to realise your dreams. Through Rosie you are given an incredibly touching and truthful emotional insight into how someone copes with the loss of their loved one, and how hard, but possible, it is to fight their way through the darkness and come out the other side.

Rosie’s two daughters are also great additions to the novel; their perspectives add a second side to the grief – having lost their father, and trying to help their mother through times that they must be finding extremely difficult themselves.

Sue Watson is brilliant at writing about family dynamics – she depicts relationships between people and the emotions that they feel with incredible authenticity and sensitivity. This story includes both the bad and the good of real life, told with humour and warmth and an easy, flowing writing style that sucks you in from the first page.

I loved the hope that was prevalent throughout – the idea that we are never too old to follow our dreams, or our hearts. The romance in the book was extremely well written, and the chemistry between Rosie and her first love, Peter, is sweet, uplifting and earnest. I feel that Watson truly writes from the heart, making her novel relatable and a joy to read.

We’ll Always Have Paris is a wonderfully profound story about the loss of love, dealing with grief, family relationships, and rediscovering first love. Most prominently, it is about the importance of learning from your experiences, and the appreciation of hindsight. Through Rosie’s story, we are shown that courage is essential to living through pain, and learning to love again. Sue Watson writes with wit, warmth and a poignant understanding of human relationships and the ability that hope has to heal the heart.

We’ll Always Have Paris is out in March next year! You can pre-order it on Amazon, here.

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