Love Life by Nancy Peach
Netgalley and Harper Collins

Love Life follows the story of Tess, a doctor working in a hospice, who doesn't really believe in love anymore since finding her boyfriend in bed with another man, add that to the voices in her head saying she isn't good enough plus an underlying eating disorder and you actually have a bit of a troubled character. Enter Edward, the son of a hospice patient who Tess had a very brief encounter with in the past but he doesn't seem to remember her, or does he?

I thought this was going to be a light hearted romance but what you get is a bit more than that. There is some light hearted moments, mainly in the form of Tess's roommate Kath and the TV show host who is one of Tess's voices in her head (the other being Jane Austen) and there is definitely romance but you also get family secrets, poignant conversations about death and a sub plot of bulimia to take you on a whole range of emotions from smiles and laughter to outright tears.

I actually really loved it. Tess's voices in her head did annoy me to start with but then I got used to the narrative and they grew on me throughout. I loved Tess's character and from the start I was willing good things to happen to her. Edward annoyed me a lot to start with but as he showed his true emotions and character I loved seeing how their friendship and relationship developed in a very up and down sort of way!

The author handles the complex themes so well and it never feels like one is outdoing another. They all tie into the story brilliantly.

I would definitely recommend this book.
🌟🌟🌟🌟 from me.

I really wanted to like this story but I just couldn't get into it at all. It deals with some serious issues and to be honest i'm dealing with grief in my life right now so I read it at the wrong time. It all just hit too close to home. I will say it is well written and an interesting premise for a book though!

Love life is romance novel based on second chance trope. I started it expecting similar to other romcoms set in UK which are generally very feel-good kind but this one was dealing with heavy stuff though shorter in length. The inner voice monologues can be good for the narrative but it can feel a tad bit annoying. May be it was her language that did not work for me.

Though it was slow, it was a fine read but more suited for a specific audience or not exactly the kind I prefer. The good thing was how Tess's character development and how she comes out at the end was well handled.

Love Life is a story about Tess who is a Doctor working at a hospice. We follow the story and Tess’ inner voices take the form of a TV show host and Jane Austen herself. I do not know a lot about Jane Austin unfortunately. For me it was not so interesting, but it can be skipped. The story mostly take place in a care hospice when the patient receive a palliative care. Tess is a doctor there. One day she receives a patient with cancer and she remember her son from her past, she has already met him. But he is so different, arogant and untouchable. Slowly they get to know each other. And then...

It was a slow read for me, but not a bad one. I loved the slow burned growing relationship, hate to love story. I felt with Tess her bad relationships and her iner growing an learning of loving her self more. When you take care of you everything seems better.

‘It does really make you think life is too short to be spending it doing something you don’t enjoy.’


I have to thank you NetGalley, HarperCollins Uk and One More Chapter for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I think I was expecting more from this book then I got. I enjoyed the read but it took me a while to finish it.

A shocking breakup followed by a shocking meet up causes tension, job problems, and wishes to a female doctor while she cares for a dying woman. The woman’s son was once the doctor’s dream man and maybe it will be the second chance she hopes for.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Love Life has it's moment's where I enjoyed the story. However there were also moments which felt forced like the lead characters' quirks, let's just call them quirks. The issues she had felt more like something added to the character just for the sake of it and could've done without them.

Love Life by Nancy Peach is not a light romantic read at all. The main character is a doctor who is bulimic and has very low self esteem after her last serious romance ended badly. The big complaint I had with this book is that Alice doesn’t just have negative thoughts, which we all have from time to time. She has negative thoughts that involve a tv host with an audience and Jane Austen. I hated that. It was very distracting and it made me say several times that Alice needs to get some professional help. I did like a lot of the minor characters, including Mary, Edward’s mother. Honestly, I ended up skimming the book so I could just finish it. Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK One More Chapter for the ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

I struggled to get into this one. I didn't find either of the characters likeable, and the story was unpleasant.

**please note due to low rating I will no be leaving a public review for this book as I have not paid for it.**

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so promising - I loved the idea of having an internal narrator that was Jane Austen, but the execution was extremely jarring between Jane and the game show host and it kept throwing me out of the narrative.

I also just don't really understand why we have to say oleaginous instead of slimy or oily, or denouement instead of finale, somnolence instead of drowsiness, portents instead of warnings. That was all in the first chapter, and maybe it is just me - but I don't really like when authors do that a lot.

Like I said, this had promise and may be a better experience for someone else if those things above don't bother you, but it wasn't for me.

Love Story is a romance between Tess and Edward, a hospice doctor her patient’s son that she had a one night stand with. Tess struggles with deeply negative thoughts and an eating disorder, plus she just found her boyfriend in bed with another dude. Edward is pompous, angry and lashes out to those around him. Despite this, they form an unlikely friendship. I tried really hard with this one but it was a DNF for me, which is hard to admit. I felt that the numerous sensitive topics that the characters struggle with could have been handled a lot of carefully and not exploited for the sake of a story. Unless the book took a 180 towards the end, I think I would have been disappointed by this one even if I could have forced myself to finish it. There are better stories out there that handle some of these topics with more sensitivity where they aren’t the main crux of the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins/One More Chapter for the advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

One day, when Dr. Alice Carter is at the hospice she runs into a familiar face. Years before she was doing her rounds with palliative care she met Edward at a party and they had a connection.

At the time, both were in a relationship, and although they wanted to keep in touch, circumstances led them to be kept apart.

Until, the moment he accompanied his mother to be under Alice's care. She has terminal cancer and Edward had a hard time admitting palliative care is what she needs.

This is the central premise and despite the somber mood, it had potential being an enemies-to-lovers and all, but, Love Life completely misses the mark.

There's a style choice to narrate Alice's inners thought's as a Television Host and as Jane Austen. These musings get annoying early on, and they are so self-deprecating they are difficult to read.

Moreover, they harbor some glaring issues. First, there's a mention of bulimia that is completely brushed off and never mentioned again.

Second, the book starts when Alice finds her boyfriend cheating on her. The book makes sure to mention plenty of times that he was found with another man, and therefore Alice was so bad that she "turned him gay", and in another instance, one of her inner voices mentions ‘I Turned My Last Boyfriend Into A Homo, Can I Ever Love Again?’

The issue was that the boyfriend cheated, constantly bringing up his sexuality cheaped the whole thing, and left a sour taste.

But, even if I tried to ignore these things, both Alice and Edward were absurdly unlikable characters. They had zero chemistry, he was an insufferable bully and she had a terrible personality.

Overall, sadly, this was not the book for me.

Thank you to Netgalley, One More Chapter, and Nancy Peach for an advanced copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book as it entailed issues I haven’t really come across in other stories I have read (a hospice, eating disorder, the “good” and “bad” voices in one’s head, etc.) I LOVED Edwards mother. She is very sweet and kind, and even with everything she is going through, tries her best to put other people before herself.

I sadly found there to be some glaring issues with this story, though. I felt that the topic of bulimia was not treated with the respect it deserved and it was written as though it is just a choice someone could make to just stop making themselves sick. I find that to be very problematic and it makes it seem as though people who are dealing with an eating disorder have the ability to just stop and all will be well. I strongly disagree with that. The other issue I have is Edward. While there are parts of his character I really like (his softer side), he most definitely has a toxic side and he treats Tess terribly (even for the circumstances they have found themselves in.)

I was really excited to read this one as it had been reviewed as very funny and a great love story, I just have a hard time giving it a recommendation due to the issues listed above (which to me are not small.) Enter at your own risk.

Love Life is an enjoyable second chance romance story. It follows two emotionally wounded individuals who initially connect, but the timing wasn’t right to be together. They lose touch as they move on with others and are brought together by a chance meeting. The two of them begin to get to know the other, but they are unsure if the initial feelings from years ago still exist or if they were just not meant to be. Essentially, the basic premise is amazing and there are amazing themes throughout this novel. However, there is a lot going on all at once that it sometimes feels that some issues got lost in the shuffle where it did not fully hit the mark for me.

Tess Carter is in her late twenties and is currently training to become a doctor. She is in the middle of training rotations with current plans to become a GP. Her current training is at a hospice facility where they look at end-of-life care for patients. Tess has A LOT going on internally that she struggles with on a daily basis aside from her career. One day she came home from work to find her boyfriend, Scott Wickham, in bed with another man. They broke up and Scott became serious with this man, Luke Foster. She has a very complicated relationship with her mother as her mother has drilled it into her head that men were bad from a young age, so Tess never dated or opened herself up to men until Pete, in university and was the boyfriend before Scott. She is half-Italian while her half-brother is half-Jamaican with their English mother. Her father left her mother when she was five years old and the two of them lost contact. Tess was under the impression that her father did not want anything to do with her anymore. Additionally, she suffers from very low self-esteem and developed bulimia that she sometimes has under control.

Throughout the story, the readers are introduced to the two inner voices in her head that I have mixed feelings about the inclusion of in the story. She has a television host that essentially is her own worst critic and points out every single flaw that Tess believes she has. Then, there is Jane Austen who gives the slightly more optimistic approach with some criticisms. It is a good concept with the “angel and devil” scenario as it is very relatable where everyone has inner doubts that can eat away at them. It gave some good insight into her mental health. Many issues from her past have affected how she sees herself in the present and how she pictures her future. For me, I think a slight reduction in their length would have been better as sometimes it went on a while and caused me to lose focus on what was happening before in the story.

Now Edward Russell, a 31-year-old lawyer for a large bank in London, has his own emotional struggles. When his mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he feels lost. He grew up with an emotionally unavailable father, so he was closer to his mother. Additionally, his father suddenly passed away from a heart attack only a few years ago. His sister, Madeline, lives in the United States with her family, so he can speak to her on the phone, but a lot of his mother’s care now falls on his shoulders. His current girlfriend, Clara, does not help matters as she is a very busy lawyer and is not always around to be a support system for Edward. When Edward’s mother, Mary, is brought to the hospice, he meets Tess who becomes his mother’s doctor. The two butt heads over differences of opinion with her care and perhaps recollections from their first meeting years ago back when Tess was with Pete.

As I said earlier, there is a lot happening in this story. I feel it would have been better served to take some of the pieces out in order to give some subjects the time and attention they deserved. While it felt realistic as some people do have that much going on at any given time, it felt like too much to fit into a single novel. The main issue that occurred with Tess at her clinic was her trying to find balance for being there for her patients without becoming too involved. However, Tess discusses learning from this, but I would have liked more from this part of the story. She faces possible professional repercussions from this, so it would have been nice to have more about how she learns from it and moves forward with her patients.

Overall, this was an excellent debut with tons of potential. It is not a light-hearted read as many darker/difficult issues are tackled; however, there are many moments of levity in the story. The story is mostly told from the perspective of Tess with occasional portions that were told from Edward’s. While I loved getting some inner thoughts from both main characters, it did become confusing when there was no transition so it bounced between from one paragraph to another. Ideally, I would have enjoyed a 50/50 split, but I did not feel it was necessary, and instead, I just wished for a little more transition between the two. I loved the ending between Tess and Edward as it was done well and fit the situation of the story. While not being fully my cup of tea, this novel was interesting and I would be interested to read more from Nancy Peach in the future.

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, HarperCollins UK – One More Chapter, for the opportunity to read this enjoyable novel. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**

I did not finish this book. I gave it several chapters to try and get into it but I just couldn't. The writing style was just really offputting to me and the voices in Tess's head were very distracting. I could not connect to Tess or get invested in the story at all. I can see other people enjoying it but it's definitely not for me.

Loved the humour and the nod to Jane Austen in this book. Drew me in from the start. Loved this book. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me review this book.

This is a wonderful story, that pulled on my heart strings and I can't deny, I was very pleasantly surprised by Love Life. When I first picked this up, I thought it was going to be a a run of the mill romantic comedy, but it wasn't...it was much more than that.

It is difficult not to love Nancy Peach's writing style and the characters she has created here. Tess is a great leading woman, her self doubt, and low confidence resonated with me, including her cynical side regarding "Happy Ever Afters." This is an author I will be looking forward to read more of, and as a debut, she has set the standard high.

Yes, this is a romantic comedy, with uplifting and feel good charm, but there are some very sensitive matters that are written so delicately, I couldn't help but be swept away by this. A highly recommended read!

Love Life by Nancy Peach a four-star peach of a read. This could be a five-star read with a little more work, but I am being generous by giving it four stars at points. I enjoyed so many aspects of the story, setting a romance within a terminal care setting is brave, and that I enjoyed so much, but the way that we went from Tess POV to the occasional chip in by Eddie, if it had been a more clear who we were hearing from and maybe in a ideal world a chapter form each of them alternatively, with a chapter from Eddies mum who was a main character in essence, but doesn’t seem as important to me. I enjoyed that it was a romance with a deeper edge to it. I look forward to more from this author as they clearly have a good voice to hear.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

There were parts of this book that I really loved, but there were other parts that rambled a bit too much.

Love Life was a difficult read for me. Tess was not as strong of a main character as I would have liked, and her internal voices were completely overwhelming and really took away from the story. I also struggled to see the chemistry between Tess and Edward; it didn’t fully make sense to me. I did enjoy Tess’s interactions and relationship with Edward’s family (especially his mother) but overall found myself getting lost amongst the internal voices and lack of clear chemistry/love plot.