I don't hide from life.........

Nothing more astutely describes Betty Ramdin. She's surrounded by the tropical breezes, the sumptuous foods and delicacies, and the rhythmic music of Trinidad. But Betty is also enveloped in the throws of an abusive marriage with her husband, Sunil. Betty tries to placate Sunil when he's filled with the after affects of too much rum and too much testosterone. What she won't tolerate is anything that comes too near to her four year old son, Solo. He is her world.

In time, Betty becomes a widow after an accident takes the life of her husband. She makes friends with a colleague of hers at the school where she teaches. Mr. Chetan captures her heart and that of young Solo through a very mutual friendship. Mr. Chetan presents the opportunity of moving into Betty's spare bedroom. They share the cooking, the shopping, and the gardening. Mr. Chetan provides a safety net for both Betty and Solo.

Ingrid Persaud wraps these characters tightly with mutual admiration. As readers, we become engulfed in their daily comings and goings. Seriously. It's been a while since I've become that invested in characters as they walk across the pages. They soon will become complicated and multi-layered by their life experiences........experiences from the onset of birth and experiences thrust upon them by their own decisions and caught up in the decisions made by others.

Persaud will move this story to the harrowing streets of inner New York City and the consequences it will play on the lives of these characters. Each chapter is entitled with the name of the character and spoken from their own perspective. The language befits the dialogue of Trinidad and you'll soon feel its smoothness and lilt. It couldn't be told any other way. Love After Love touches on that very emotion that carries such a deeply embedded personal response in all of us. This is definitely one to keep your eye out for.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Random House (One World) and to Ingrid Persaud for the opportunity.

I wanted to like this book. The premise was great, but I couldn't get past the broken English. I tried to but I just couldn't get used to it. I realize the characters would talk this way due to their background but I couldn't get past it.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion.

"Thing is, worse than the pain in my arm is Sunil’s spirit in the house. The man in the walls, on the stairs, in the rooms. Before he passed he must have put the bad eye on me for truth. "

Love After Love is an interesting title for this novel, because it is about love but not the sort we tend to seek out with romanticized notions. Love here is far stronger between friends and family than in lovers, forced into terrible situations and entanglements for passion. Written in Trinidadian dialect it may take some readers time to get into the flow, but I feel it lends a more authentic flavor to the tale. It begins with Betty Ramdin’s husband Sunil, stinking of rum and feeling big and mean after ‘working hard all week’ he is taking everything out on Betty and their little boy Solo. From the way Betty caters to him, the ugliness spewing from his hateful mouth and her terror as she watches him bully Solo it’s obvious she is like a beaten down dog, trained on the scent of her husband’s brutality. It’s for her son that she fears, who she tries to protect, often inserting herself to do the things Sunil demands of Solo, so that when his clumsy little boy hands fail he won’t get punished. To think people told her she was lucky, looking at Betty with Sunil by her side, but what sort of lucky leaves you with broken bones and a cowering child? Sunil may be dead in a few pages, but his poison has spread and his death will have damaging consequences through the years, testing the bounds of love between mother and son.

Betty is a good mother, trying to raise her boy right once she’s free from the imprisonment of a bad marriage but living in the big old house she could use money and a lodger would be ideal. After giving Mr. Chetan (her co-worker) a ride one morning, Betty mentions she needs a lodger, if he knows of anyone needing a place, particularly a mature woman, it would help her greatly. This in turn becomes the perfect opportunity for Mr. Chetan, as fate would have it, his landlord is selling everything thanks to the misfortune of crime. A gentle, quiet, private man he will be no hardship, though Betty herself seems to be talkative and possibly a meddler in time the two come to mean as much to each other as devoted spouses.

Both Mr. Chetan and Betty have shameful secrets, even criminal to some minds, but in life we are pushed to make choices to save ourselves, and others. There are rules about love and in Trinidad trying to embrace who you are under the condemning eyes of the people can be one’s ruination. People are fast to talk, Betty learns this all too well as she ventures out for a man’s touch, much to her son Solo’s humiliation. Despite Mr. Chetan’s role in his life, a type of surrogate father and a far better one than his own departed dad, when Solo discovers what his mother has kept hidden from him he concocts a plan and with his savings soon abandons their life and flees to live with his paternal uncle in New York. Betty thinks it’s temporary, but he wants nothing more than to be free of her and her lies, to cut her out like a cancer. In the process, he pushes Mr. Chetan to take a backseat role too, and the thing about leaving is that you can’t always return to the people you have left.

The dynamics change once Solo is gone, Chetan is living his life more freely, maybe more for himself finally when someone from the past is again in his life. Betty is yearning to hear about her son’s experience in America, jealous of the closeness he has with his uncle while she is again like a dog begging for a bone, resorting to sending letters to the boy who refuses to see sense in her explanations. He is keen on his pain, and finds many outlets for it.

Solo struggles in New York but feels good being a part of the Ramdin men under his Uncle Hari’s guidance, and no longer under the ‘suffocating’ care of his mother, who kept him a blind fool. Hari tells him it won’t be easy working hard jobs, he should stay in school as his dad would have wanted that but having Solo around he tells him ‘Every time I look at you I seeing piece of Sunil.’ Solo cannot go back to Trinidad and his mother’s lies. Through Uncle Hari, Solo can get to know the father who is just a fading memory and cling to the toxic blame he feels is all his mother’s due. The truth, the same as people, has many faces and may well turn us against the very people who made dangerous decisions for our sake. It will cost Solo, his mother Betty and Mr. Chetan time that they will never get back. Solo has a lot to learn and finds he is more like his mother than he thinks; getting a mother who has cared for you all your life out of your system isn't so easy.

In this story some people’s love is so pure they are willing to risk their very soul and yet others can’t find enough heart to accept their child for who they are. Some are so hungry for love they will tolerate any sort of arrangement just to feel alive, to be near their beloved and society itself forces people into dangerous situations just to feel the burn of it. Love shouldn’t cost this much. Shame weighs more than the soul can bear, but how do you release it’s grip? “The moon can run but the day will always catch it.” There is family dysfunction, grief, abuse, distorted memory, mother’s pure love and then some. Here, Mr. Chetan is the glue between Betty and Solo, for that it is a savage and beautiful love story.

Publication Date: April 14, 2020

Random House Publishing

One World

A QUICK NOTE: There are sexual encounters that may put off some readers but it is not the sole focus, keep going with the novel. It broke my heart.

I dnf this title. Like the other reviews, the broken English didn’t click with me. I wish it did because I was so excited to get approved for this novel.

Unfortunately I couldn't get interested in this one. Wasn't for me (I'm picky and in the midst of a reading stump!)

I had a hard time getting into this book. I understand that the speaking style was likely chosen to portray a realism of how the characters would talk, but it was hard to follow.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing.

I had a hard time with this. It may be fine for some readers, but the patois were more annoying for me than enlightening.

I couldn't stand the format or the broken English this book used. I read a few chapters and finally gave up. The beginning of the book really drew me in but once it started on everyday stuff between the three characters, I just couldn't handle it anymore.

I think I made a mistake in requesting this one. I can't read it. The English is very broken. I neither like nor hate it. I just simply can't read it so I'm giving it a review that's in the middle.