Mirrigold: Mutterings & Musings

Where Love Grows by Jay Northcote

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It’s no secret that the way Jay writes resonates soundly with me.

But in this one, he pulled out all the feels about how to write a romance where one of the protagonists isn’t a perfectly fit man but is living with the after effects of chronic illness.

I will state for the record that I did a sensitivity reading as someone who is living with a very similar situation albeit from a different condition.

But I’ll also state, I made very little input to the narrative other than lots of “OMG yes, that’s totally right” throughout because all the emotions were there already.

Jay skilfully gives us Stephen’s life as he tries to recover from two huge blows, the loss of his parents being something he was still dealing with when illness struck.

And then, with Luke, we get a man who isn’t on the face of it, a likely candidate for a lifetime of happiness.

However, what happens next really is quite beautiful and you’ll not get any spoilers here, either than to say it’s as organic and natural as the garden which comes back to life alongside Stephen.

I love it when an author steps away from the norm in contemporary romance to give me something a bit more unusual.

There’s no great traumas here, no massive dramedy (that’s drama and tragedy mushed up into unnecessary plot points).

Instead, we get to watch two men, both a little bit broken, start to bloom together.

Love absolutely does grow here and the Epilogue had me smiling and then laughing my head off.

The chicken poo really does make it memorable 😉

#ARC kindly received from the author in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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