Blogmas 2021: Best woman fiction #blogmas2021

Hi friends,

I am still having troubles with my blog because of my host provider (I can tell you that many customers are unhappy!) but I will see blogmas through it all!

Today we are talking about best woman fiction read this year.

I have one winner for you: How to Walk Away by Katherine Center

I truly breezed through that book, swept off my feet by Therese Plummer outstanding performance of bringing Margaret or “Maggie’s” live to live.

That story was very moving. Filled to the brim with sorrow at times and laughter the page after.

I wondered if Maggie would ever walk again.

And she switched between determination, hard working and despair.

But in these situations, all that you can do is try.

“Then he bent down in front of me and met my eyes for the first time all day. He looked straight into my pupils until he had my full attention. Then he said, “Whether you walk again or not, I’m going to tell you the one thing I know for certain.” I blinked. “What’s that?” He took a deep breath. “It’s the trying that heals you. That’s all you have to do. Just try.”

My dad has been amputated and that’s another element that had me relate so much with this story and with Maggie’s struggle.

Because when Katherine Center says that after such a tragedy, you still have to live, that’s true!

“Because that’s all we can do: carry the sorrow when we have to, and absolutely savor the joy when we can. Life is always, always both.”

And when after such ordeals your life and path are so deeply changed, you can’t help wonder if you are better for it, even if you paid a steep price.

“That’s the thing you don’t know—that you can’t know until life has genuinely beaten the crap out of you: I am better for it all. I am better for being broken.”

“Needing to find a reason to live had forced me to build a life worth living. I would never say the accident was a good thing. I would never claim that everything happens for a reason. Like all tragedies, it was senseless. But the one thing I knew for sure: The greater our capacity for sorrow becomes, the greater our capacity for joy.”

Maggie was an amazing heroine, with an enormous strength. But even being an optimistic person does not mean that there won’t be bleak days when you come out of such tragedy.

That there aren’t days when all that you want is stay in your bed, sleep and forget your new reality.

Lucky for Maggie, she had her sister’s help.

And again, that aspect of the story felt so real.

The fights between the sisters but also how your sibling gets you like no one else…

“I’m always amazed at how fast siblings can warp-speed into a state of rage. It’s like they keep everything they were ever angry about growing up shoved into an overstuffed emotional closet, and at moments like these, it takes about two seconds to swing the door open and start an avalanche.”

And if tha t wasn’t enough, you also have the slow burn romance between Maggie and her broody therapist Ian.

That love story was written to perfection. And if like me you love slow burn romances, you’ll be in heaven.

Full of wisdom, romance, inspiration and outstanding characters, How to Walk Away is a book not to be missed!

Thanks for reading!

Sophie