The Other Year by Rea Frey

 

My thoughts

This was a different genre from Rea Frey's usual thriller books. It's a contemporary with a love story also. It's a story of the most heartbreaking loss you can imagine and the guilt that follows. Also about a budding love that may happen along the way. 

I enjoyed this book from start to finish. I shed quite a few tears reading it. Or I should say reading every other chapter. It's told from two different ways. One she lives. One she drowns. A mother's love and loss in this story is heart-wrenching and so realistic in every other chapter. The other chapters are the what if. What if her child had not drowned. What if she gets to grow up? 

Kates daughter drowned. She went under and didn't resurface. Kate had glanced down at her phone for a mere second but it's costing her a lifetime of pain. She of course blames herself. If only she had gone in the water with Olivia. If only she had not looked at her phone. If only!

Kate is torn between not just two men but before it's over there are three. One is her ex. I only liked him as a dad. Then there is her best friend Jason. Don't ruin your friendship. You've been best friends way to long to go there. Then there is the farmer Ian. I absolutely adored him. He sounds very good looking and very nice. He's suffered a great loss also and well he's just the kind of man that she needs. But her ex Michael had his chance. He chose his job over his family. Though he was still a good dad he just wasn't husband material. 

You'll also meet Waffles. Waffles is the dog you meet and will love. He's the perfect companion for Kate and Liv. I really liked Kate and was so glad she came to terms with her loss. Somewhat. As much as a mother can that is. I was glad she found love too. I was glad she finally got a dog in the end of the other chapters. 

I finally got it what this title was suppose to mean. What it implies. What it says.... The Other Year is the perfect title. Well done Ms Frey. 

Be sure and read the acknowledgement at the end also. Don't you dare stop writing. Please. Take some time for yourself always but please don't stop writing. You are good at it. 

Thank you #NetGalley, #ReaFrey, #HarperMuse. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

FIVE huge stars. I highly recommend this book.

Synopsis

Can the entire course of a life be traced back to a single moment?

On a coveted two-week beach vacation, working mom Kate Baker’s nine-year-old daughter, Olivia, vanishes suddenly among the waves—a heart-dropping incident that threatens to uproot her entire reality. But in the next moment, Olivia resurfaces, joyously splashing.

What would I do if she didn’t come up? Kate wonders. How would I live without her?

In another set of circumstances that hold a different fate, Kate doesn’t have to wonder. Because in that “other” world, in the pulse-pounding seconds after Olivia goes under, she doesn’t come back up.

Told in parallel timelines, Kate begins to live two lives—one in which Olivia resurfaces and one in which she doesn’t. In the reality that follows her daughter’s death, she maneuvers through every mother’s worst nightmare, facing grief, rage, and the question of purpose in the aftermath of such profound loss. She endures, day by day, in a world without her daughter.

In her alternate timeline, while she explores a tremulous romance with her best friend, Jason, she finds herself grappling with the ex-husband who abandoned Kate and Olivia years prior. Even as Kate scrambles to hold her daughter close, Olivia pulls further away. The line between joy and loss seems to get thinner with each passing day.

Woven into a single story, both Kates discover a breathtaking fragility and resilience in their respective journeys. Bringing to light the drastic polarities dire circumstances often create, The Other Year explores truths about love, loss, and the sharp turns any life can take in the blink of an eye.