it's like rain on your wedding day
It’s the wedding day for Amanda Dean, and she feels like everything is going wrong. Some of it is nerves. Some of it is rain where they’re supposed to get the pre-ceremony wedding photos taken and the fire alarm going off at the hotel where she’s getting ready. Fortunately that turns out to be a false alarm, and her hair stylist is able to make up for that lost time.
But that still gives her time to think. To run back through the important people in her life, and the times she was in love.
There was her first love, the one she met as a kid and who became her best friend. Marisa and Mandy were inseparable through school, and fell in love in high school. They dated other people, went to school functions with boys, but finally Isa decided to be honest and tell Mandy about her feelings. And Mandy said she felt the same. They were inseparable until the summer after graduation, when Mandy was going to Europe to study art.
Mandy had wanted to be an artist her whole life, and spending the summer in Europe, taking some classes and visiting museums was an opportunity too good to pass up. All Mandy had ever wanted was to be a doctor. She’d had been offered a full-ride scholarship that would take her far on her journey. Mandy wanted Isa to come with her, but they both new Mandy wouldn’t be back in the states after only three months. So they went their separate ways, broken-hearted.
In Europe, Mandy eventually started going out again. Sophie, an aspiring fashion designer, took her out and introduced her to a London Mandy had never known. And after Europe, when she went back to the States and went to college, just a couple of years behind most of the other freshmen, there was the boy who got her pregnant and then disappeared.
And finally, after college, when she’d settled into a job at an ad agency, using her graphic design skills to create mesmerizing billboards, she met Edmund. Edmund was a successful finance manager, steady and strong. He had proposed to Mandy during her first art show, a huge success where her paintings were adorned with signs marking them Sold.
And now it’s Mandy’s wedding day, and she’s hoping that just because things are not starting off well, that it doesn’t mean the whole wedding is jinxed. Because she is marrying the love of her life, and all she wants is the chance to walk down the aisle and start her new life.
The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean is a powerful love story, told in fits and starts, as we travel through time putting together the puzzle pieces that lead to happily ever after. Bouncing back and forth in time and around the world, this story reveals the joy and the heartache of opening yourself up to being in love.
Rich in family relationships as well as friendships and romantic relationships, The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean was like an emotional roller coaster, as there were the beautiful highs of falling in love and the lows of losing a beloved family member. I loved how diverse these relationships were, and how they let Mandy thrive and find success throughout her life. I will admit that the amount of bouncing through time gave me a little vertigo from time to time and I had to stop and reorient myself to when and where we were, but I also thought it was a successful way to tell this story. More than just a love story, this novel is one I’ll remember for a long time.
Egalleys for The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean were provided by Berkley through NetGalley, with many thanks, but I also won a copy through a Goodreads giveaway.
