I Couldn't Love You More
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
An unforgettable novel of mothers and daughters, wives and muses, secrets and outright lies
'Freud is a modern literary rarity: a born storyteller' THE TIMES
'Such a powerful book' RICHARD CURTIS
'Delivers an emotional punch that left me in tears' RACHEL JOYCE
'Utterly compelling' HANNAH ROTHSCHILD
'I couldn't love it more' POLLY SAMSON
'I loved this book' AMANDA CRAIG
'Completely, inspiringly wonderful' BARBARA TRAPIDO
'Breathtakingly beautiful' JULIET NICOLSON
AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF 2021
Rosaleen is still a teenager, in the early Sixties, when she meets the famous sculptor Felix Lichtman. Felix is dangerous, bohemian, everything she dreamed of in the cold nights at her Catholic boarding school. And at first their life together is glitteringly romantic – drinking in Soho, journeying to Marseilles. But it's not long before Rosaleen finds herself fearfully, unexpectedly alone. Desperate, she seeks help from the only source she knows, the local priest, and is directed across the sea to Ireland on a journey that will seal her fate.
Kate lives in Nineties London, stumbling through her unhappy marriage. But something has begun to stir in her. Close to breaking point, she sets off on a journey of her own, not knowing what she hopes to find.
Aoife sits at her husband's bedside as he lies dying, and tells him the story of their marriage. But there is a crucial part of the story missing and time is running out. Aoife needs to know: what became of Rosaleen?
Spanning three generations of women, I Couldn't Love You More is an unforgettable novel about love, motherhood, secrets and betrayal – and how only the truth can set us free.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Freud's beautiful and insightful latest (after Mr. Mac and Me) focuses on three generations of distinct and well-drawn women. In 1939, Aiofe Kelly marries the dashing Cashel. They run a London pub and send their daughters to a Catholic boarding school in the Irish countryside during the war. Rosaleen, their feisty daughter, hopes to be a journalist, but her dreams are put on hold in 1959 when an opportunity at the Daily Express turns out to be a lowly mail-sorting job. She omits mention of her diminished circumstances in letters to her parents and falls in love with a Jewish sculptor, Felix Lichtman, many years her senior, and becomes pregnant, only to learn he already has a wife and child. Next, the reader meets Kate, who, in 1991, is married to a hapless musician with a drinking problem. Kate adores their daughter, Freya, and is an artist in her own right. Kate, who was adopted, frequently imagines seeing her birth mother, whom she learned about at age 10. As Freud delves into the three women's lives, the reader is taken on a journey of heartbreak as desperate actions taken to protect loved ones are revealed. This eloquent exploration of the ineffable ties between mothers and daughters delivers the goods.
