Saving Missy - Beth Morrey

 

Description

Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find where you truly belong…

Seventy-nine is too late for a second chance. Isn’t it?

Missy Carmichael is prickly, stubborn – and terribly lonely. Until a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new. Something wonderful.

Missy was used to her small, solitary existence, listening to her footsteps echoing around the empty house, the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. After all, she had made her life her way.

Now another life is beckoning to Missy – if she’s brave enough…

‘A touching, deftly written debut that celebrates community and kindness’ Sunday Times

‘Moving and optimistic… will delight readers right up to the very last page’ Stylist

‘Bittersweet, tender, thoughtful and uplifting . . . I loved it’ Nina Stibbe

Review

I loved, loved, loved this book.

Missy is 79 years old and all alone in her big rambling house with too many memories of her family life. Then one day after a bit of a turn, she is rescued and helped by well meaning strangers, and suddenly she's not alone at all. What follows is a wonderful story of love, family life and friendship, but with all the ugly scars and realities of living.

We get flashbacks to Missy's university days and then her bringing up her young family. Did she get it all wrong? Should she have taken a different path to find herself in a different reality now? Brilliantly written with such down to earth day to day stories. Yet interwoven with the most wonderful prose together with stories and quotes from the ancient world. I started off enjoying reading the book, but then it reeled me in and I read the remaining half of it in one go as I was completely subsumed into it.

Towards the end of the book two events happened which had me in great floods of tears. No sooner had I managed to read the rest of the book through blurry eyes, I was crying again, this time for a different reason. I feel quite shaken by this book, I'm going to be thinking about it for some time to come. 

I can't praise this book enough. I'm giving it a solid 5 out of 5 stars and urge you to read it too. My thanks to Random Things Tours and netgalley for the ARC to review.