Lovely story about love, loss, and friendship. Nick's childhood sweetheart Kerry dies of cancer, leaving Nick, a very young widower, and Ollie, their son who has a terrible time acknowledging his grief. This switches back and forth between 1992 when Nick meets his friends Alex and Eric and the present as Nick and Ollie set a new course for their lives. Nick has a number of regrets but never about Kerry and Ollie. Now he's dipping his toe into new water with a girl friend; his family, including Ollie, doesn't make it easy for him. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is nicely written with good characters you will both recognize and root for.

I ended up loving this book. The only thing that could make it better? If I had listened to it, as I would LOVE to hear the accent and all the slang that was used with the right sound.

Nick is married to Kerry, who falls ill and dies shortly after. Theirs was a teenage romance that was a whirlwind and changed their lives quickly. Their son, Olly has just graduated and is moving on to advanced schooling. Nick is left with a broken heart, a family that sometimes lives much too close, and the opportunity to discover a new chapter in his life.

There is so much greatness happening in this book. The humor is great, the story is sweet (mid-90's and present day), the friendships are wonderful, and the overall lessons are fabulous. There is a little bit of language in this one (some of the English ones I have no idea, but I'm guessing they're there).

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of this book for my honest opinion.

Another 5 star offering from Amanda. Heart wrenching, heart warming and thought provoking. Brilliantly written.

I received an ARC of this book. A poignant story of love, loss and hope for the future. I thoroughly enjoyed this story of a man whose world falls apart and his struggle to pick up the pieces and carry on. It hit close to home for me. I highly recommend this moving story.

I have read several of Prowse’s novels and she is someone who never disappoints when it comes to family dynamics and the emotional impact of life. This book was no exception and followed the story of Nick and his son Ollie. At the beginning we find out that Nick’s wife Kerry is dying, but even so we feel the seismic shock to the family when she does go. This year was always going to mark a huge shift in family life. Son, Ollie has done his A Levels and is scheduled to leave for university. Now in the space of a few months Nick will have to get used to living alone. Added to this, Kerry’s mum and sister are also grieving.

Prowse alternates Nick’s present with an insight into his past. We see the group of friends, who are helping him through his loss, back when they were when they were teenagers. We get an insight into the sort of young man Nick was and how these friendships have grown through first love and starting their careers, He meets Kerry very young and they have Ollie when they’re 18. This brought me up short as I realised Nick is only 35 when he loses his wife. We get some more insight into Kerry’s character and see some of Ollie in his father.

Nick takes his son to university, only for him to decide he wants to come home again. His in-laws are very supportive but how will they respond when, later in the year, Nick considers starting to date. Prowse shows us that the year following a loved ones death is life changing and complicated. Nick and Ollie don’t always know how to continue and find themselves wanting to make big changes to their life plans. This is a very relatable book with characters I could understand. Having lost my own husband at 35 I can honestly say this was a well written and real book about a family’s worst moments.

The Light in the Hallway, written by Amanda Prowse, ripped my heart apart and then put it back together piece by piece. Ms. Prowse is fast becoming one of my favorite authors when I need a warm, heartfelt story that I can wrap myself around and become immersed. She takes ordinary people and puts them in impossible emotional situations that will challenge them to their very soul. Her characters are well written and thoroughly developed, but most importantly, they are everyday people that are very relatable. When there seems to be no happy ending in sight, she surprises us, taking us on a journey filled with joy and love. I loved that she used the title of this book as a metaphor, representing love, comfort, and a place of belonging.

The Light in the Hallway is about everyday life, about how precious, beautiful, and fragile life can be. It’s about the people in our lives and the relationships we have with them and how we should never take them for granted because, in the blink of an eye, everything we love could disappear. This is a story about a man who has experienced a love that should have lasted a lifetime.

The Light in the Hallway takes place in the small town of “Burstonbridge” on the North York Moors in Yorkshire, England. This book flips back and forth between two different timelines, the present day and 1992.

The Light in the Hallway starts in 1992 with three teenage boys, Nick, Eric, and Alex, as they build a friendship that lasts into adulthood. We get to experience the incredible bond formed between these three boys. Ms. Prowse perfectly captures the pure innocence of these boys and how they grew up together and then ties it in beautifully with the men they became.

We then find out that Nick’s wife, Kerry, dying after being ill for over a year. Kerry was the only woman that Nick has ever loved. Although their life together wasn’t perfect, Nick loved her wholeheartedly. As this book progresses, we experience the day to day struggles and feelings of intense loss that Nick and his son Olly must push through now that they have a life without the woman who was their rock. While trying to work through his grief, Nick must not only endure the resentful judgment from his sister-in-law but also navigate small-town living where every move he makes is seen and judged. The big question is, will Nick be able to find his second happy ever after?

Ms. Prowse packed this novel full of love, loss, grief, friendship, soul-wrenching sadness, self-insight, anger, and living life to the fullest. There were many moments throughout this book that I reached for my box of tissues, but this book also made me smile. It reminded me that even when life is difficult, and we feel tremendous grief, with the love of family and friends, we can live and love again. I enjoyed reading this book, and I highly recommend it.

*** I kindly received this galley by way of NetGalley/publisher/author. I was not contacted, asked, or required to leave a review. I received no compensation, financial or otherwise. I have voluntarily read this book, and this review is my honest opinion. ***

Nick’s wife of nearly 19 years dies after an extended illness, leaving him a 35 year old widower with a teenage son about to leave the nest. Nick and Kerry have been together their whole adult lives, and in her absence, Nick has to figure out how to be a person in his own right. While attempting to sort through his own grief, successfully launch his son Oliver into adulthood, and figure out how to fluff the cushions, he’s also dealing with his deceased wife’s relatives, a best mate obsessed with Nick’s sister, and an increasingly friendly coworker, Beverly. Nick’s main concern in navigating all of this is his love for his son, Oliver.

This is a really sweet read, reminiscent of the kind of “fade to black” romances my Grannie reads. The constant flipping back from present to the summer of 1992 was a little distracting for me. I would have appreciated more time and details invested in the present, or more connections from the past showing up. The dialogue occasionally fell a little flat to me, but my favorite conversations were the ones between Nick and Oliver. There was something intriguing about reading a “women’s fiction” style book with a male protagonist, especially one who’s British and working class. Overall I enjoyed reading this wholesome book!

3.5 stars

***I received an ARC from NetGalley and am posting my honest review***

The Light in the Hallway asks the questions "..Who's to say when the time is right? How soon is too soon? After 19 years of marriage, Kerry loses her battle to cancer and Nick's life must go on as he sends their son, Oliver, off to university. Nick feels like Kerry wants him to be happy, wants him to find love again, but Oliver and Kerry's sister, Di, are not happy with Nick moving on at what they believe is too soon.

I really enjoyed the look back, at the end of each chapter, to Nick's childhood where he and two friends, built not only Half a Bike, but a lifelong friendship. The end of the story was absolutely perfect and exactly what I had hoped for Nick.

This is the first book I've read by Amanda Prowse and I fully intend to read her backlist. I love being introduced to new authors that have an extensive backlist I can catch up on. This book publishes November 11, 2019, so be sure to check it out!

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing for the advanced copy; all opinions are my own.

Amanda Prowse has the rare talent for taking an ordinary, everyday life circumstance and turning it into an extraordinary heartwarming story. She has done it with every one of her books that I have read and she continues this satisfying tradition with The Light in the Hallway.

The story opens with Nick going to the hospital to say a final goodbye to his wife Kerry, who is dying of cancer. They married young when she discovered she was pregnant with their son, Ollie, and she has been Nick’s whole life, certainly at least his whole adult life. Having married my childhood sweetheart I can relate.

It’s been a good life for the most part for Kerry and Nick, but in some ways kind of a life he has settled for, a compromise, circumstances dictate. He can’t imagine life without her. There’s no welcoming light in the hallway anymore to let him know Kerry is home and waiting for him. But he’s young, so there has to be life, HIS life, right? Even if others don’t understand. And others never understand. Your children don’t understand what your relationship is or was, the good and bad of it, no one does, they just see you as a unit. But they judge you anyway and you feel guilty. And you already feel guilty so it just compounds it. And that’s where Nick is right now, wondering what the next half of his life is going to be like. More of this overwhelming loneliness and uncertainly about every decision he makes?

We follow Nick through his grief, Ollie through his, and the support, interaction and interference from friends and family, some of whom mean well, and some, not so much. Nick takes one tentative step after another, until his steps aren’t quite so tentative. He’s a good man and loved Kerry very much, and now it’s time for the next chapter.

Interspersed throughout the story are peeks back into 1992, when Nick was 10 and spending the summer with his best mates Eric and Alex, still his best mates today, building Half Bike. These chapters are charming and tell us a lot about Nick and the man he has become.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Light in the Hallway. A friendship of three boys has turned into a solid friendship of three men, but life for all three of them is much different than expected. That’s the thing about life, and the thing Amanda Prowse always portrays so magnificently. Things always change. They don’t turn out like you think they will. Even good surprises are still surprises. There might be a Master Plan for your life floating around somewhere, but the older you get the more you learn that you are not really in charge of that plan. That’s what happened to Nick and the others. Life.

Thanks to fantastic author Amanda Prowse for providing me with an advance copy of The Light in the Hallway via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This book is wonderful. Absolute 4 1/2 stars. I'm very stingy with that fifth star.

You're drawn in from the first page, and while it was a pretty fast read, it was also something I savored, and thought about while doing things other than reading it.

In the spirit of all the recent UpLit, this one ranks right up there. Soul affirming words contained within these covers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for the ARC.

The domestic dramas that I am a sucker for usually show a women going through a hard time, battling through and coming out on the other side so it was quite refreshing to see the roles reversed. Nick loses his wife and is left dealing with his teenage son, Oliver.

When I read an Amanda Prowse book, I am not reading a book full of characters, I am reading a book about people. This story is heartbreaking at times whilst also making me laugh out loud.

Nick has lived and grown up in the market town of Burston Bridge. The friends he had as a child are the friends he has now and I loved the flashbacks to the 90’s, the long summer holidays were boys played out and got up to mischief from morning till night.

The loss of his wife hits Nick hard, he’s lonely and lost. Not only has he lost his wife but his son, Olly is moving away to University. The heartbreaking scene where the wen to buy essentials really touched me. The loss of a mother and a wife was really hitting them hard. When Nick starts to form a friendship with a female colleague, he starts to realise that life has to go on. Olly is horrified. He struggles to see why things have to change and struggles to come to terms with his dad’s new friendship.

Living in a small market town it’s not long before everyone knows Nick’s business and everyone has their own opinion on the matter. I love the way that the family is forming opinions and taking sides but when it really matters they are all there for each other no matter what.

I loved this book from start to finish and cannot praise it enough. It was the perfect book to get comfy on the sofa with in my PJ’s, whilst drinking hot chocolate.

A great book about the strength and love of strong women your lives. This book looks at father and son through their journey of healing after having to say goodbye to the special woman.

Thank you Net Galley, Amanda Prose and Amazon Publishing for the opportunity to read this wonderful book. This book centres around Nick, a hard working man who is dealing with his wife dying. He is a fantastic character with so much depth that you will be loving him from the first page. The book goes from 1992 when he was a young boy, building a bike with his two best friends to present day. He still lives in the same town with the same two friends, and his son. The author tells this story with such clarity that I find myself walking the same street as Nick, laughing with him and crying with him. Watching he and his son rebuild there bond is heart wrenching yet beautiful. This book will pull you in with the story line and wonderful characters. I was so content when it was over and happy to have read this book.

Amanda Prowse has a knack of getting under the readers skin in every book she produces and this one is no exception, right from the first chapter my tears were flowing when Nick's childhood sweetheart, Kerry dies and Nick is left wondering how he's going to cope without her and what sort of dad he will be to his 18 year old son Olly now that he's got to go it alone as a single parent, as Kerry was always the mainstay in their marriage.

This is a story of love, loss, relationships, friendship and family and is told over two timelines; the present day and, at the end of each chapter, 1992 where we are taken back to Nick's childhood in which Amanda portrays the strong bond of friendship between Nick, Eric and Alex beautifully and the trials and tribulations they are faced with as they are growing up.

This author brings her characters to life through the pages of her books and makes them so realistic that I feel I'm living their lives with them. She covers topics that resonate with us all as we, or someone we know, face these at some point in our lives, she delivers them so on point and so beautifully that it's impossible not to be affected in some way, I cried so many times through this one. Nick really captured my heart, dealing with not only his own grief, but also having to consider the feelings of his son and Kerry's family as he continued with his life after her death, I just wanted to wrap him in a great big hug and take all the pain away from him. I'm a huge fan of Amanda Prowse and she totally smashed this one, another bestseller I reckon which I highly recommend.

I'd like to thank Amazon Publishing and Netgalley for the auto approval, I will post my review on Goodreads now and on Amazon on publication day.

I loved this sweet little story of love, grief, friendship, and starting over! "The Light in the Hallway" by Amanda Prowse is the story of Nick, whose wife recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. The moving story is told in the present time, but also flashes back to Nick's childhood. Nick has to walk that fine line between acknowledging and grieving the loss of his wife (and dealing with the grief and needs of family members) and coming to terms with the desire for new companionship and love. Having lost my father in my early 20s, I could really identify with Nick and his conflicting emotions. When is it ok to live your life again after losing the person most dear to you? How do you deal with other people in your life that feel you are disrespecting the memory of your loved one by "moving on too fast?" The author deals with the subjects of loss and grief so beautifully that, instead of being depressing, the story lifts the reader's spirits and fills him or her with hope. This was my first book by Amanda Prowse, but it absolutely will not be my last!

What a truly wonderful and realistic read. I have to admit, I was not in the right frame of mind when I started this book, and it seemed to start out slow. I am used to reading murder mysteries and medical thrillers and the like, and this book is not like that. Rather, it is a story about love, loss, doing the right thing and starting over. The characters are well fleshed out, and the story is very relatable. The story also has flashbacks to 1992, when the main character, Nick, and his 2 best mates, spent a summer together building a bike. I like that the friendships from that time carry over into the current story, as well as little tidbits that relate to the current story. I found myself crying and cheering multiple times.

Nick, at age 35, loses his wife of 18 years to cancer. He now must figure out how to move forward and help his son, Oliver, to do the same. Along with his family and friends, he learns to navigate this new life and figure out how to live and love again. There are lots of mistakes and mishaps that make this a very funny and touching story.

“Everything can prosper with a bit of love.”

How do you start again when you lose the only love you’ve ever known?
After Nick’s wife falls ill and dies, he finds himself lost, navigating his life and parenthood alone, trying to deal with his grief and to guide his teenage son through it.
The Life In The Hallway is a powerful and emotional book about grief and finding yourself again after loss.
The story alternates between Nick’s younger days and the present.
It started a little slow for me but it was a beautiful story overall, full of sad and sweet moments and hope.

“Life throws curveballs and you’ve got to either catch them and throw them back or dodge them.”

“Grief is not a linear journey. Sadness is not a sequential thing.”

“Life is a gift and we have to live it the best we can. Both of us. We owe it to everyone who no longer has a life.”

Thank you Netgalley and Amazon Publishing for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

http://www.instagram.com/booksandcoffeepleasemx

I am so glad I got to read a copy of this book early. I will be honest, the last 2 books I did not care for but this brings her right back up to the top for me. It is a beautiful book. And I truly enjoyed reading it and so will you ! Great book !

Amanda Prowse has written a great novel. It covers most subjects. Love. Loss and friendships.

Nick and his son have just lost Kerry after he battle with cancer. The book covers how they both struggle with their grief. Oliver goes off to Uni but doesn’t want his dad to move on. The book uncovers their relationship and those around them.

The book also flashes back to Nicks early life and his two friend Eric and Alex. And how those bonds of boyhood shape your life.

An enjoyable read.

The meaning of the title The Light in the Hallway is not revealed until late in this heartfelt story. It refers to the light you see when you look in the windows of a happy home. The novel, set in a small town that becomes almost a character of its own, takes place in the present day where Nick is grappling with the death of his wife Kerry. There are flashbacks to Nick’s childhood, his best friends and the unforgettable half bike. Nick and Kerry married right out of high school, had their son Oliver soon after and Nick went to work in a factory to support his young family. While their marriage wasn’t perfect, they were deeply in love and Kerry’s voice speaks to Nick, giving him advice and encouragement. When Oliver leaves for the university, Nick supports him as well as he can. And when Nick enters the dating world, he finds a new relationship. Themes of friendship, family and change run through all the little stories the weave themselves into this one big, bursting at the seams with emotion book. Read it. It will made you laugh, cry and leave you smiling.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Amazon Publishing and Amanda Prowse for this ARC.