The Year of What If
by Phaedra Patrick
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Pub Date Jan 16 2025 | Archive Date Jan 16 2025
Aria & Aries | Aria
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Description
Can the future be rewritten?
On the verge of her second marriage, Carla Carter knows she’s finally found the one. She and her fiancé, Tom, met through Logical Love, a dating agency she founded for the pragmatically minded, and she’s confident that, together, they will dispel an old family curse claiming Carter women are unlucky in love.
But Carla’s highly superstitious family insists she visit a fortune teller before her big day, and the tarot cards reveal that a different man holds the key to Carla’s happiness – someone she met while travelling during a gap year, twenty-one years ago. This startling information spurs Carla to trace and revisit the ex-boyfriends she met during that time before she walks down the aisle.
From Barcelona to Amsterdam, Turkey to Paris, will Carla find her perfect match? And can a face from her past help Carla rewrite her entire family history, forever?
"An escapist romp that offers it all: a European vacation, an unsolved mystery, and a whole lot of love" CHRISTINA LAUREN
Advance Praise
Anyone with a meddling family and too many exes will feel right at home in The Year of What If, an escapist romp that offers it all: a European vacation, an unsolved mystery, and a whole lot of love. CHRISTINA LAUREN
[An] uplifting tale of a woman searching her past—and herself—in pursuit of her one true love. LUCY GILMORE
Phaedra Patrick has written this journey into the past as the start of a future so lovingly, compassionately and enchantingly that, after reading it, one has the intense feeling of having made a new, close friend, Carla. NINA GEORGE
Readers looking for a touching story about love and self-discovery will find much to enjoy in this heartfelt and appealing story of following your heart. BOOKLIST
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781035914760 |
| PRICE | £9.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 384 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Beate H, Reviewer
Thank you to NetGalley and Aria & Aries for this ARC.
Carla, 42, believes in maths and logic. The rest of her vast family (sister Jess, grandmother Lucinda, aunts Mimi and Evelyn the most prominent) are deeply superstitious. They claim a hundred year old curse exists that women in their family are destined to be unlucky in love, starting with ill-fated couple Agatha and Lars.
After an acrimonious divorce from first husband Aaron, Carla founds a match-making agency called Logical Love, which heavily relies on questionnaires and pragmatic algorithms. These algorithms have led her to Tom, her fiancé and soon to be husband. The wedding is mere weeks away and this time, Carla will avoid all mistakes and prove her family wrong about the curse.
Then her family take her to a fortune teller called Myrtle who is also a distant relative. She gives her six tarot cards, claiming they represent past lovers and that one of them that she met on her gap year travelling around Europe 21 years ago is her forever love.
So she takes herself off to Barcelona (Pedro), Portugal (Adam), Amsterdam (Ruben), Sardinia (Fidele) and Paris (Aaron), while Tom has swanned off to the US for a boardgames convention.
I love Phaedra Patrick's books. They cover so much. Here, Carla is sent on a journey of self-discovery - not just to find out what she has learnt from her past relationships but also find out more about that inconvenient curse.
What if it never existed but lives on as a self-fulfilling prophecy? What if Tom never was "the one" because their compability was wrongly calculated? And why does she keep finding out deeply important and personal things that nearly derail her path in life?
Altogether, this is a charming book with a very smart core, interesting characters and lovely travel descriptions. There is so much love for partners but also for friends and family that it's really heartwarming. Highly recommended to anyone who likes an eventful story and a slightly open ending. It also has a really gorgeous cover.
4.5 stars
