What’s it all about?:
Audrey’s family has fallen apart. Her two grown-up daughters, Jess and Lily, are estranged, and her two teenage granddaughters have never been allowed to meet. A secret that echoes back thirty years has splintered the family in two, but is also the one thing keeping them connected.
As tensions reach breaking point, the irrevocable choice that one of them made all those years ago is about to surface. After years of secrets and silence, how can one broken family find their way back to each other?
What did I think?:
This review comes with a huge thank you to Orion Books who hosted a bloggers event just before Christmas – Books And Baubles where they showcased some of the books they were most excited about that were being released in 2019. I received this review copy in exchange for an honest review and as soon as I read the synopsis, I couldn’t help but be keen to pick it up, I was in just the right mood for a family drama and a narrative full of secrets and luckily, Hannah Beckerman fulfilled all my expectations. Having never read anything by the author before, you’re never sure what to expect as a reader and I was thankful to find a page-turning story that constantly had me intrigued about how such a previously close family could fall apart so spectacularly.
Hannah Beckerman, author of If Only I Could Tell You.
I could sense from the very first moments of reading the synopsis that I was in for an emotional reading experience and I certainly wasn’t wrong. Without revealing any secrets, I can say it’s a highly charged, devastating story which leads to lack of communication, misunderstandings, feelings of betrayal, loss and despair and horrific memories of moments that stick with our lead characters years after certain events occurred within the family. All three of our female protagonists are greatly affected as a consequence and take these thoughts and feelings into their adulthood which in turn has a life-changing effect on their present relationships with their parents, siblings and even their own children in the case of Jess and Lily. This domino effect of misery can only be remedied once the two sisters bury the hatchet and agree to talk to each other. Yet, how is this ever going to happen when they refuse to accept the others’ existence?
If Only I Could Tell You led me on a roller-coaster of emotions which ranged from pure sadness and incredible frustration as I hoped in desperation for the two sisters to just TALK to each other before a catalog of heart-breaking home truths was unveiled with gut-wrenching consequences. It was written so beautifully from the three different voices that you could immediately put yourself in Audrey, Jess and Lily’s shoes, feel what it was like to walk around in them and understand the chain of events that unfolds from their particular opinion. It made me realize the importance of family, the crucial nature of effective communication and the undeniable fact that life is just too damn short to hold a grudge or bear anger towards someone else. This powerful and spirited novel will definitely have me seeking out more of the author’s work in the future.
Would I recommend it?:
But of course!
Star rating (out of 5):
