Monday 22 March 2021

The Best Is Yet To Come - Katy Colins



About the book… 

When you feel invisible, friendship can offer a ray of hope.

Sometimes it’s the things we don’t say that we need others to hear the loudest . . .

Izzy has always taken everything in her stride but motherhood is proving more difficult than she thought. She keeps telling herself it’s just a phase but the dark clouds are starting to appear.

Neighbour and widower Arthur might be in the winter of his life but he’s not ready to be packed off to a care home. He’s determined to do things his way.

When Izzy hears about Arthur’s big move, she offers to help. But Arthur isn’t telling her the whole story. It takes courage to admit you need a friend and when you feel invisible, all you need is a ray of hope. After all, what if the best is yet to come?

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About the author… 

Katy Colins is a bestselling author of uplifting, feel-good fiction.

The acclaimed travel blogger's experiences inspired her to pen 'The Lonely Hearts Travel Club' series and saw her labelled the 'Backpacking Bridget Jones' by the global media, when she sold all she owned, filled a backpack and booked a one-way ticket to south east Asia and never looked back.

Nowadays, Katy has swapped backpacking for writing books and trying to tame toddlers. If you want to find out more about Katy's new releases you can sign up to her newsletter at www.katycolins.com.

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My thoughts…
 
The Best is Yet To Come is a story about unlikely friendships, and centres around new young mum Izzy and Arthur, her elderly neighbour. Two of the loveliest book characters ever.  They live in the same cul-de-sac but and are only vaguely aware of each other, they don’t even know each other’s names.  Arthur is an octogenarian, widower and is leading a pretty reclusive life with little or no interaction with anyone other than his nephew Jeremy. He’s a man grieving the loss of Pearl the love of his life and has little joy in his life, she was his life. 

Izzy is married to Andrew and is on maternity leave.  She was always considered a strong, capable, organised and in control.  Fast forward a few weeks past the birth of daughter Evie and she is now feeling Invisible and utterly useless. Her gorgeous daughter is not playing ball.  Izzy spends all of her time feeding or changing the permanently screaming bundle of joy.  Izzy is at breaking point.

The author, Katy Colins has sensitively tackled the very real subjects of post-natal depression, loneliness, grief and loss, counter-balanced with friendship, love, laughter and new beginnings.  I smiled, laughed and was chocked up on more than one occasion reading about the lives of Izzy and Arthur. The descriptions played like photographic stills in my mind, I could clearly place myself in the book with them.

As I read about Izzy’s struggles as a mum, those feelings of not quite being good enough, the feeling that everyone else is coping better than you - the abject misery of not being able to settle your child chocked me up.  They are, I’m guessing imprinted into the memories of most new mums, I know they are in mine.   Nobody talks, nobody shouts for help, because we don’t want to appear failures, I would have been lost without my mum, I so felt for Izzy without hers, the emotions bounced off the pages and settled in my throat, a lump that I was unable to swallow.  Andrew, Izzy’s husband seems to be taking to parenthood like a duck to water - what baby?  His life hadn’t appeared to change - in fact he seemed to be working even more and still managed to live his life whist Izzy could barely have time for a cup of coffee.  It would be so easy to pass judgement at this point - I might have?!

I loved Arthur, what a character, I loved his grumpy, brusque manner - his rudeness and down to earth, say it like it is attitude.  He was beginning to struggle to live alone, something his nephew Jeremy was aware of and kept trying to push him towards a home - I was firmly in Arthurs corner on that subject and thought Jeremy was uncaring and all about ensuring the security of his inheritance and not having to be responsible for Arthur anymore!  

Izzy and Arthur meet when he delivers a parcel that had been mis-delivered to him and a connection is made. An accident occurs that see Izzy and Arthur drawn together and a tentative friendship begins, when Izzy offers to help pack up Arthurs house ahead of his move to a home. Their blossoming friendship was just beautiful to read - my heart melted as they each took strength from their time spent together.  I could have spent the whole book hugging them both.

The story ebbs and flows and watching Arthur and Izzy grow in strength and character was like a warm hug wrapping itself around my heart - such an emotionally uplifting read despite, or rather because of, the hard hitting subjects at the heart of The Best Is Yet To Come.  I totally loved this book and have no hesitation recommending it to anyone who loves a book that leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling.

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