“She’s kind of a metaphor for lost futures.

The lives we might’ve lived if we’d chosen another path.”

When You Were Mine

⚠ Content Warnings:  Drug use. Alcohol use. Homophobia. Addiction.
⚠ Book Tags :  Famous/Non-Famous. Co-parenting. Second chance romance.
⚠ This Book In Emojis: 💑👨‍👩‍👧👬👩🏼‍🤝‍👨🏽🏡🎸

Book Blurb

Life is a love song when you find the right notes

Maggie and Ibby make up a happy – if unconventional – family. After meeting at university, they now live in the village of Applecroft on the beautiful West Country coast.

Okay, so Ibby’s gay and prone to disastrous dates, while couples’ counsellor Maggie spends her days helping people with their relationship problems despite having no sex life of her own. Nevertheless, they’re devoted to bringing up teenage daughter Amelia – the result of a drunken one-night stand when they were students – in a stable and loving family.

Until a face from the past – in the form of hard-partying rock star Jordan Nash – disrupts their quiet lives. As Jordan struggles with his personal demons and old secrets are revealed, can Maggie and Ibby stay strong? Or will bringing back the past threaten all that they’ve built in the present?

A feel good, heart-warming novel about about first loves and second chances. Fans of Holly Martin, Dani Atkins and Heidi Swain will be captivated.

Lisa Swift is the pseudonym for bestselling women’s fiction novelist, Mary Jayne Baker. 

About The Author

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

A Second Chance On A Book About Second Chances

When You Were Mine is one of those Netgalley books that have been rotting on my Kindle shelf, so finally I decided to pick it up.

This story talks about the story of four main characters. Maggie coparents her daughter Amelia with her gay bestfriend Ibby after a drunken one night stand when they were younger. Then, there’s Jordan Nash, UK’s most famous rockstar, and an important part of Maggie and Ibby’s past.

I have to admit that I picked this book up before and stopped reading it. The story does take a while to keep up and some details can be confusing especially with the switching POVs. I guess there’s also that cultural divide that I normally experience with British books. Some jokes get lost in translation and some pop culture references mean nothing to me.

However, those things did not matter at the end, because this book was a definitely a beauty. This is a lovely story of how family works and what it means. There’s parent relationships with each other, parent-child relationship, friendship, your one great love, change, fame, growing up, heartache, identity, and many other themes discussed here. I loved every bit of it.

When You Were Mine just made me realize that you should never really judge a book by the first few pages. Sometimes, they take a while to pick up, but when they do, they can bring you to an amazing learning experience and a journey that will stay with you for a long time.

Final Thoughts: What a surprise! (The good kind)