Saving You…

About the Book:

Three escaped pensioners. One single mother. A road trip to rescue her son. The new emotionally compelling page-turner by Australia’s Charlotte Nash

In their tiny pale green cottage under the trees, Mallory Cook and her five-year-old son, Harry, are a little family unit who weather the storms of life together. Money is tight after Harry’s father, Duncan, abandoned them to expand his business in New York. So when Duncan fails to return Harry after a visit, Mallory boards a plane to bring her son home any way she can.

During the journey, a chance encounter with three retirees on the run from their care home leads Mallory on an unlikely group road trip across the United States. Zadie, Ernie and Jock each have their own reasons for making the journey and along the way the four of them will learn the lengths they will travel to save each other – and themselves.

---

My Thoughts:

‘She couldn’t find a silver lining in this. This life was all hard, unforgiving edges. Every hardship dug in, bruising until it hurt to think at all.’

I’ve read Charlotte Nash before and always enjoyed her novels, but Saving You is next level, like nothing she’s ever written before. I wanted to crawl into this novel and stay there. As I got closer to the end, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss; I just didn’t want to let this story go. There’s such a heartfelt honesty running through the pages of this novel and the themes were so on point. Love, regret, betrayal, loss, and ultimately, hope.

‘A knowledge that this man was honest, said what he meant, and was brave enough not to shy away from danger or from tears.’

What happens to Mallory in this novel is an all too realistic scenario. Thrown over by her husband, her vulnerability in the face of his male privilege was a startling reminder at just how easy it is for a woman to lose everything and not be able to do all that much about it. The irony of the law being on your side, yet not being able to access it on account of limited financial means. I felt desperately sorry for Mallory, who was not only grappling with a situation she hadn’t seen coming, but also trying to come to terms with a broken heart and shattered dreams. And she was such a beautiful person too, her dedication to her job as a carer for the aged went beyond the realms of just doing her job. She was filled with empathy for those under her care, driven by a need to make their lives as fulfilling and as dignified as possible – even when at the absolute rock bottom of her own life.

‘Zadie loosened her grip and caught Mallory’s eye. In that look, Mallory glimpsed the whole woman Zadie was: the one who had left home young, who had loved her husband but been lonely in her marriage, who didn’t want to now be fading into old memories. Who didn’t like being in hospital any more than anyone else.’

In many ways Saving You is a coming of age story about a young woman who had to grow up too fast. All of a sudden, with her life turned upside down and inside out, Mallory needs to rely on her own wits, push herself in a way she never has before, and trust in her instincts. The relationships she makes while on her journey across America are unforgettable and leave a permanent imprint upon her. Saving You is about as authentic as you will get, unflinching in its honesty, raw and beautiful. It would make a brilliant film. I just can’t recommend this novel highly enough.

‘…life was addictive in its promise of goodness and wonder, in its hope that even in the dark cracks of sorrow, something better could come again.’

🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵

---

Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of Saving You for review.

---

About the Author:

Charlotte Nash was born in historic Lincoln, England and grew up in the sunny Redland Shire of Brisbane. Obsessed with horses and riding, she began stealing her mother’s Jilly Cooper novels at the age of thirteen, and has been enthusiastic for romance ever since. Always a little unconventional, she took a meandering path to writing through careers in engineering and medicine, including stints building rockets and as an industrial accident investigator. Now she writes romantic stories, and moonlights as a creative writing PhD student, studying how narratives engage the brain. She lives in a cosy Brisbane cottage with her husband and son, and a small flock of lovable chooks.

---

Saving You
Published by Hachette Australia
Released 29th January 2019