Everything Happens For A Reason by Katie Allen – Book Review

PUBLISHERS BLURB 

Mum-to-be Rachel did everything right, but it all went wrong. Her son, Luke, was stillborn and she finds herself on maternity leave without a baby, trying to make sense of her loss.

When a misguided well-wisher tells her that ‘everything happens for a reason’, she becomes obsessed with finding that reason, driven by grief and convinced that she is somehow to blame. She remembers that on the day she discovered her pregnancy, she’d stopped a man from jumping in front of a train, and she’s now certain that saving his life cost her the life of her son.

Desperate to find him, she enlists an unlikely ally in Lola, an Underground worker, and Lola’s seven-year-old daughter, and eventually tracks him down, with completely unexpected results…

Both a heart-wrenching portrait of grief and a gloriously uplifting and disarmingly funny story of a young woman’s determination, Everything Happens for a Reason is a bittersweet, life-affirming and, quite simply, unforgettable read.

MY REVIEW 

Everything Happens for a Reason is the tale of grief and trying to make sense of tragedy.

Rachel was pregnant when she stopped a man from jumping in front of a train…but then tragedy strikes and her baby is stillborn. Utterly heartbroken, Rachel tris to fins a reason why? She wonders if saving the man at the train station is linked to the loss of her baby.

So, she decides to find him.

This is a heartbreaking read as Rachel struggles to believe everything happens for a reason all the while dealing with her grief. There are a few moments of humour with Lola and her daughter mixed with the tears in this heartbreaking and yet heartwarming and uplifting tale. A wonderful mix of tears and laughter.

Thank you to Random Things Tours for the opportunity to be part of this blog tour, for the promotional material and an eARC of Everything Happens For A Reason.

ABOUT KATIE ALLEN

Everything Happens for a Reason is Katie’s first novel. She used to be a journalist and columnist at the Guardian and Observer, and started her career as a Reuters correspondent in Berlin and London. The events in Everything Happens for a Reason are fiction, but the premise is loosely autobiographical. Katie’s son, Finn, was stillborn in 2010, and her character’s experience of grief and being on maternity leave without a baby is based on her own. And yes, someone did say to her ‘Everything happens for a reason’.

Katie grew up in Warwickshire and now lives in South London with her husband, children, dog, cat and stick insects. When she’s not writing or walking children and dogs, Katie loves baking, playing the piano, reading news and wishing she had written other people’s brilliant novels.

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