The Things We'll Never Have

Hilary Hauck had me at the word brolly. In her novel “The Things We’ll Never Have,” Hauck creates a world of authenticity. We feel that we’re sitting with the protagonist Everleigh and her mother as they have tea in London, and later in a pew at a church in Italy as she rushes to the pulpit to address the crowd for Everleigh is the unmistakable heroine of this story.

Told through the perspectives of three women: Everleigh, Marta, and Olivia, we learn the story behind Gualtiero’s disappearance before he is married to Everleigh. All three of the women lay claim to him but no one knows where he is. In fact, two of the women think he’s dead. Everleigh rushes to Italy to find him.

The reader feels compassion for Everleigh’s as well as Marta’s plight. People have often played the game “what if” with themselves but who wants to acknowledge the things they’ll never have?

“He has made sure he will never have the things that were once within his reach, though he could not see it at the time.”

“Petty, but he was my guy, and yet I was always second to his sister.”

Pride only gets you so far. Everleigh and Gualtiero are not willing to know the truth, preferring to believe lies. Ironically, Everleigh can capture the nature of colors and describe it to a blind woman more easily than capture the love of a man.

“The Things We’ll Never Have” has a poignant yet unresolved conclusion which makes the reader reluctant to have finished the book.

Many thanks go to NetGalley and Olive Rose Press for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

Summary
Everleigh is a young woman from London whose fiancé has just disappeared. Marta is a woman who lives ostracized in Italy for having a son out of wedlock. Olivia is an Italian woman who took her place in death by saving her from a fall. These women come together as Everleigh comes to travel in the Italian city these women reside. Heartbreak, loss, clarity, truth, and a web of connection thread this 1960s story together and reveal how resilient and capable women are.

Big Picture Plot
A fiancé, reputation, and brother lost. Three women connect over their loses in an attempt to help one of them locate their lost fiancé.

Individual Character Musings
Everleigh: lost her father to the war when she was young, always striving to please her mother, and may have chosen a fiancé who distances himself a little too much. She immerses herself into a new culture, one of which she does not know the native tongue, and experiences immense character growth at the end of the novel.
Marta: Lost her reputation when she became with child five years ago by the brother of Olivia. She has been shunned to live on the outskirts of town and her son has been stolen of a family. She is stubborn and willing to sacrifice everything for her son. However, she also experiences a lot of character development throughout the story.
Olivia: She is a young woman who is blind and has managed to connect with the world around her while refusing to be tucked away from society like most blind girls of her time. However, when her brother died in a tragic accident when he was trying to save her, she lost the one person who taught her how to have sight without eyes. Throughout the book, her blinders are taken off and she is able to see the people around her for who they truly are, and not for who she built them up to be.

My Take
I really liked this book. I would 100% re-read it and I recommended it to a couple of people. I was able to figure out the plot by 10-20% in… but it didn’t ruin the book for me. The constant butting of heads and inflexible nature they all had was quite frustrating at first. However, I do recommend reading through as it appears Hauck meant for this, so that a big crescendo of an ending could occur. I do love how Hauck crafted these characters into their own beings and gave them an opportunity to grow into new versions of themselves and experience life. Great read!


Would I Recommend?
I would recommend this to most people, especially those that love Italy or historical fiction. This touted itself as a psychological thriller; however, I would say that for those who shy away from psychological thrillers, you would be safe to read this one… it is more of a mystery than a thriller.


Rating: 4 stars

Everleigh (love the name), a typist in London, has one great thing in her life, her Italian fiancé. The day she wakes up to find him missing, she realizes she needs to travel to Italy to find out why. Once there, things are not what she expected. This was an elegant, well-written, thoughtful book with three unique and strong, in different ways, female heroes. The story unfold as each of the three main characters share her perspective on the story. The book was a page-turner and I loved all of the use of color and scenery in the book.
I know the author is not often involved in the selection of the cover, but this cover led me to believe the book was a mod romance set in the 60's. The popular cover showing the backs of women looking at the scenery would have depicted the book better.
This would be a great book club read, much to discuss.

Ordinarily I am not a mystery or a love story fan, but combined in the way they are in this book I was intrigued from the beginning. There were definitely a few times where things were just a little too coincidental, but overall I was invested in the quirkiness of the characters and interested in how the story would turn out for each of them in the end. I especially enjoyed how the author uses different methods for the characters to see things in different ways and describes the blind character Olivia feeling the "waves" of the people around her.

It's been quite a while since I read a good woman & historical fictional book, and I picked up this book in the first place because of its story set in Italy in the year 1964. It's a love story mixed with mystery vibes where you keep on wondering why the hero of the story disappeared in the first place. The main character, Everleigh is bold to travel to Italy from London all by herself to find the truth and it's quite a shock to find out that things are not always what they've been seen. Readers will also get to know about Marta and Olivia and her colourless world as well as Olivia's family, and in the end, surprisingly, all of them are connected mysteriously. My fav of all is Marta as she shows her strengths most of the time despite being vulnerable at times. I'm happy that she chose to go to London for her own sake as well as for her son, Vittorio.

'...yet in my weariness, I settle for contemplating how odd it is that you don't notice the world around you. The everyday, the sights we take for granted. We regret yesterday and how we did things, we worry about tomorrow, but when we do we give time to today?'
~ Everleigh

Overall, I'm content with the story ends just like that.

I received an ARC of Hilary Hauck's novel "The Things We'll Never Have" in exchange for an honest review and the following is my own opinion.

When Everleigh's Italian fiance, Gualtiero, disappears in 1960s London without a word before their wedding, she sets off to his village in Italy to try to find out what happened. Armed with only the letters she has taken from his desk, she tries to track down his family. The story is told through the voices of the three female characters ( the Englishwoman Everleigh and the two Italian women Marta, and Olivia). At first it was a little confusing because they seemed to be completely unrelated, although their voices felt quite similar. As the story unfolds their relationship to the lost fiance becomes clear and a tragic event that had occurred in the town years earlier is explained.

This was an interesting and well-written novel, and I was propelled to find out what had happened. However, I thought it could have been about 20-30% shorter.

Everleigh heads to Italy when her fiancee Gualtiero disappears. She hopes to find out what happened and why he disappeared. She meets up with 2 diverse women, both somehow connected to him. That kicks off a mystery about who he is and why he disappeared. I loved the story and the mystery of who he was. Everleigh's character was pretty annoying, but I loved Marta and wanted to see where the story took her. All three of them experienced a lot of growth through the story and I liked where they ended up.

This book is a 4 star read for me.

The novel is not divided into chapters, rather by short narratives of the characters. It took a while for me to adjust to this, but after a while, I found it very effective in making the story more fast paced. It also shared the different characters' emotions and thoughts to events more instantaneousely. I also liked that the setting, London and Italy in the 1960s was well described. Overall., enjoyed reading this novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc.