This was my first book by British author Amanda Prowse who is well known for her emotional women's fiction. In The Idea of You, Ms. Prowse explores a woman's desire for a baby and what it means to be a mother. Her protagonist, Lucy, has suffered several miscarriages and is (obviously) feeling despondent. When sixteen-year-old Camille, her husband's daughter from his first marriage, comes over from France to stay with Lucy and her husband Jonah, Lucy is additionally faced with the problems of step-parenting.
Let me start by saying, I don't think I was the right target audience for this. It was a free book from NetGalley so I thought I would give it a go. I found it very difficult to connect with Lucy. She seemed so dreamy and was far too idealistic for me. Her expectations of life with a teenage stepdaughter seemed rather unrealistic to start off with. Actually, her entire idea of motherhood was a bit like that. Don't get me wrong, I have two daughters and love them dearly, but this was all a bit too rose-tinted glasses for me. I couldn't understand why Lucy simply wasn't more open about everything, as it would have avoided a lot of issues. There wasn't a lot of depth to it and in the end, conflicts were resolved pretty easily.
However, the writing was ok and I would definitely read more by this author. I can see that this book would really appeal to readers who are looking for light but emotional women's fiction with a sweet ending, it just wasn't quite my cup of tea at the time.
The audiobook is narrated by the author, and she did a pretty good job of it. Her voice for Camille was particularly convincing. I would have liked it more if the other characters' voices had been more distinct.

Lucy appears to be a great career woman with everything that she wants but looks can be deceptive......deep down she really wants a husband and child. So when she meets Jonah she is swept off her feet - very quickly married and then pregnant she thinks she has everything she ever wanted.......but that is not quite the case and this is not helped when Camille Jonah's teenage daughter comes to stay

This is a very emotional book with many ups and downs and strains on marriage and relationships and it is easy to sit back and say people are making the wrong decisions but very different if you are actually the person making them

We’re provided with a curious prologue of Lucy’s childhood. Her dad has died and mum following the incident puts Lucy in her place. She consequently forms a closer relationship with her nan. But what has actually happened??

As an adult, Lucy has split from Richard, he having gone astray and married her cousin. Acutely aware of being nearly 40 & single, she definitely feels behind the curve when it comes to settling down and having children. Moreover she yearns badly to be a mother.

The split from Richard did her good and she excels in her career, enjoying the desire to be good and succeed more and more. But in truth she is lonely. At a christening she the warm John carpenter. He is 7 years older, but they are smitten and soon marry.

This is Jonah’s 2nd marriage. He has a feisty ex-wife that lives in France and a 16 year old daughter Camille who he rarely sees.

Things look up when Lucy becomes pregnant but she struggles to carry a baby through to term and has to deal with the raw emotions of this and a spell being a step mum to the not so easy Camille.

This is a story about the emotional rollercoaster of Lucy’s life, How she tries to be do the right thing, be the good daughter, sister, wife and step mum as well as hold down a successful career. Struggling with the achieving the most important thing in the world her – motherhood is a pain and crisply conveyed experience.

Lucy Carpenter has a fantastic life. She has a job that she loves that she's found a great deal of success with. She found the love of her life, albeit later in life, and has a strong and loving marriage. But as her fortieth birthday is closing in, she can't help but feel like she wants a baby, in order to bring everything together. 

But life is rarely that easy. 

Instead of a successful, happy pregnancy, Lucy instead finds herself grieving after a miscarriage and dealing with her teenaged stepdaughter, work issues, self-doubt, and isolation. Why do other women find it so easy to have a baby while she finds herself disappointed every month? Is there a reason Lucy can't have it all? It is her age, her life choices, or is it something else entirely? Can she ever find the happiness she craves without a baby to round out her life? 

Amanda Prowse's The Idea of You is the story of one woman's fight for a baby. She is fighting against time. She is fighting against her own body. She is fighting against her stepdaughter. And she is fighting against her husband. But what she really needs is the courage to fight for herself. 

This is not an easy book to read. It deals with characters in difficult and painful situations. There is a satisfying resolution in the end, which helped, but this is not a story for the faint of heart. Read with a box of tissues and a cup of tea nearby. 



Galleys for The Idea of You were provided by the publisher through NetGalley.com.

I can see why this book would appeal to many readers and would possibly even be therapeutic. However, I felt that the beginning dragged on with Lucy's constant miscarriages (and don't get me wrong, I am sympathetic to such tragedy but the book felt repetitive). The next section had Lucy as needy, jealous and struggling as a stepmother while also dealing with her desire to be a parent. Again, the portrayal was well written but the level of detail and they characterisation of Lucy made it a difficult read for me in terms of motivation to want to continue. The last section of the book had a few twists and turns but none of them surprised me.
It is a well written book but I just felt it was overly emotional and the latter part was a bit too sickly sweet. Neither the characters nor their actions felt 3 dimensional or realistic. I appreciate what the book achieves but I didn't find it overly engrossing or enjoyable.

This is the first book I have read by this author, Amanda Prowse.  I am looking forward to reading more from this author.

We meet Lucy Carpenter in the beginning of the book as a single lady looking for love.  She meets Jonah and they get married.  Now all Lucy ever wants in her life is one thing....a baby, but life does not always work out the way you think it will.  Jonah has a teenage daughter and she comes to visit them and things for Lucy begins to be a struggle for her. 

The Idea of You touched the life of miscarriages and was written very well.  All this woman wants is the idea of becoming a mom.  Without that child she thinks is can not be a mom.  But, as a stepmom, she is.  Just a little different.  I loved how Lucy became the center for her family.  I loved how Lucy wrote her "idea of you" to her child she lost.  Those letters were so sad.

I could not put this book down and I can not wait to read more.
☆☆☆☆☆
I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.
Recommend this book? Yes! Author? Yes!
Read more from this author? Yes!

Happy Reading!
Melissa

I found this a difficult book to read. Being a childless woman of a certain age made this book cutting to the core. On the whole well written and in many ways a comfort to many like myself. The story was honest and you felt for the main character. Glad I read it but was hard to at times.

I didn't want to put this book down! The characters were fully developed and made me feel so deeply with the pain that they were going through.

Very well written and engaging novel of miscarriage, stepfamilies, and ultimately hope. Prowse hit some nerves with this one. Lucy is a terrific and sympathetic character; Jonah is as well. Camille, well she's a teenager. Prowse did a very good job with the tension in the family. More importantly, she did an excellent job with the impact of repeated miscarriage on both the mother and the father. This doesn't end the way you might think it will but that makes it all the more satisfying. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I've read other Prowse novels and think this is one of her more sophisticated and thoughtful offerings. I look forward to more from her.

Fantastic book, I laughed, I groaned and I cried along the way as we followed Lucy from past to present.
I'm glad she got her happily ever after, even if Cams pregnancy was a little predictable.
Would recommend and would happily pick up another title by Amanda Prowse.

Thank you netgalley for the advanced read.
I'd never read this author before. The stories she writes about are real and I believe people will relate to them.
I'd give the book a 4. I'd recommend it to certain friends. As a mother I nevef had miscarriages. So I can't relate to the pain this character went through. But also as a mother you relate to imaging the loss she must feel. And the longing to have a child.
I would have liked to learn more about Lucy and her mom's relationship.
I like also how Jonah's daughter came into their life.

This title was given a spotlight today on the Dew. http://dewonthekudzu.com

Lucy Carpenter is almost 40. She appears to have it all; a fantastic career, gorgeous apartment in the city, a wardrobe full of clothes and shoes to make most women green, exotic holidays, and a full social life. Yet all she wants is a baby.
Then she meets Jonah, her husband to be, and she feels like life is going her way.

However, the dream of becoming parents is not as straightforward as Lucy or Jonah initially believed. Throughout everything Jonah remains Lucy's rock. Yet with the pressure and stress mounting and Lucy's job beginning to feel the strain of the pressure, this understandably begins to show on their marriage.

A thought provoking and emotional book, particularly today with so much expected of women. Can women really have it all; a high flying career and a family? Or is it impossible to juggle, making a choice imperative?

A (large) box of tissues may be needed for some people as the book delves into some touching and moving subjects.

I've never read an Amanda Prowse book before, but I enjoyed her writing style and will need to check out some of her other books.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing, for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

I love Amanda Prowse's style of writing and I was certainly not disappointed with this book. It is written from the heart and deals with the subject of miscarriage in a tender and emotional way. I have, thankfully, not ever suffered a miscarriage and I feel that reading this has enlightened me greatly of the effects of such sad loss.

I was totally engrossed from start to finish and would highly recommend this book but it may leave you emotionally drained.

This is not the sort of book I would normally read, but since I was auto-approved for it, and the premise sounded interesting, I decided to give it a try. It was a pleasant surprise, to say the least. I could definitely see this as being a true story, which is about as high a compliment as I can give. And in a wildly shocking twist, I actually found myself crying, which just doesn't happen, so kudos to Ms. Prowse for touching me so unexpectedly.

This is an honest review in exchange for an ARC from NetGalley.

I'm actually finding this review difficult to write. The main reason for this, I believe, is because I greatly enjoy Amanda Prowse's other books and waited with bated breath for this one to be available, but being generous, I can only give it 3.5 stars. I so wanted to love this...and I just didn't.

Ms. Prowse is a wonderful author who usually nails character development and storyline, but the characters in this book felt very one-note to me.

Lucy is so desperate for a man, almost any man really and a baby that she came off as pathetic, in my opinion. I think she'd have gone out with almost anyone. I can understand her wish for love, happiness and a family, but she was over the top. Once she got married and Camille came to stay,
my dislike of her character grew. She behaved almost as badly as Camille and was as whiny.

Jonah also bothered me quite a bit, mostly because he was so dismissive of Lucy's concerns about Camille, almost to the point of being patronizing to her. I would not have appreciated someone speaking so condescendingly to me, but she really never raised much of a stink over it.

I felt terrible about the constant disappointments over giving birth, but even the sympathy that generated from me for Lucy, didn't make her any more likable in my opinion. Camille was portrayed as a huge spoiled brat in the beginning, but I soon found myself feeling sorry for her and I was rooting for her by the end of the book.

This is definitely a read for someone that likes family dramas, which typically I do. I just think the characters were not the kind that I could enjoy or even like, which ruined the book for me.

Thank you very much to the author, the publishers and Netgalley for the early reader copy.

This book is for a certain type of reader- and it is not me!

The plot deals with miscarriages, what being a mom means, and relationships in general. I don't have a problem with any of these things, but I found the sheer desperation of the protagonist, Lucy, to get married and have a baby off putting. Why do older women have to be portrayed in such a way? Why are all of their past accomplishments written off if they don't have a ring on their finger and a bun in the oven? And it wasn't just Lucy- her office mates gossiped about her reason for not having any kids like it was A. their business and B. actually important.

I thought the best part (though it was more of a back burner plot line) was the developing relationship between Lucy and her step-daughter. It seemed genuine and was much more compelling to read about than Lucy's inner monologue of desperately wanting to have a baby.

Lucy Carpenter almost has it all successful career loving husband all they need to make everything perfect is a baby. Almost 40 Lucy learns of the struggles to have a baby.
Not the sort of book I'd normally read but I thoroughly enjoyed it I felt at times it got deep as if maybe person may have been writing by from experience definitely recommend it.

An excellent read, this should come with a warning that you need the tissues at the ready. I really empathised with both Lucy and Jonah in their battle to become parents.