Portobello Book Blog

Unexpected, gripping and surprisingly heart wrenching.

A mystery woven around a love story of gut-wrenching power

Brilliantly plotted and beautifully written

Formidably complex and fiendishly clever

Those are just some of things people have said about The Love of My Life and I just had to read for myself to find out if they were true. Spoiler alert – they absolutely are!

About the Book

I have held you every night for ten years and I didn’t even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house.
Who are you?

Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she’s told them about herself is a lie.

And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer and Emma is a well-known marine biologist, so, when she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best – reading and writing about her life. But as he starts to unravel her past, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name is fictitious.

When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past life finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . . But first, she must tell him about the love of her other life.

My Thoughts

The Love of My Life is a book I’d had on my Kindle for a few months before I got around to beginning. I picked it up to just read a chapter or two and couldn’t read this fast enough! I was glued to that Kindle. The narrative is perfectly paced with author Rosie Walsh revealing information bit by bit, misleading me so that, just like some of the characters, I often got the wrong end of the stick! I really can’t tell you anything about the story other than what is in the synopsis, as the way it unfurls is so carefully done that I don’t want to spoil a minute of the book for you.

The Love of My Love is full of suspense and secrets. I had no idea what Emma was hiding or why. I thought I did several times but the author proved me wrong. Even when parts of her story start to become clear, it’s never all laid out. I was reading on Kindle as I said but it’s the kind of book I wish I had a physical copy of. There were so many times I realised the author had misled me and I wanted to go back to check how she’d done it!

The Love Of My Life is a seriously addictive, twisty and emotional read. Such clever compelling writing from Rosie Walsh. This isn’t just a tense and surprising mystery tale, it’s also the most beautiful love story. Straight onto my Top Reads list for September!

The Love of My Life is published by Mantle Books (an imprint of Pan MacMillan)
and available now in hardback, audiobook and ebook. At the time of writing,
the Kindle version is just 99p but please do check as prices often change quickly.

About the Author

Rosie Walsh is the internationally bestselling author of two novels, the global smash hit THE MAN WHO DIDN’T CALL, and – new for 2022 – THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, a heart-wrenching, keep-you-up-all-night emotional thriller, which was an instant New York Times bestseller and stayed in the German top ten for several weeks.

Rosie Walsh lives on a medieval farm in Devon, UK, with her partner and two young children, after years living and travelling all over the world as a documentary producer and writer.

The Man Who Didn’t Call (UK) / Ghosted (US) was her first book under her own name, and was published around the world in 2018, going on to be a multimillion bestseller.

Prior to writing under her own name she wrote four romantic comedies under the pseudonym Lucy Robinson. When she isn’t parenting or writing, Rosie can be found walking on Dartmoor, growing vegetables and throwing raves for adults and children in leaking barns.