Laurie and Pete should never have met.
But fate has pushed them together for a reason.
Six months ago, on the same night, Laurie and Pete both lost their partners.
Struggling to manage the grief, they join the same counselling group – and meet each other.
From their sadness, Pete and Laurie find happiness growing and they sense a fresh new beginning.
Except, the more they talk, the more they begin to spot the strange parallels in their stories.
Then Pete discovers a truth that changes everything.
But, as surely as a compass points north, some people cannot be kept apart.
My One True North is a story of friendship and what love means, of secrets uncovered, teashops on corners and the northern lights.
Review: Well I'm just wiping away my tears having finished this book in basically one sitting. I just loved this story so much. I am a huge Milly Johnson fan and I have so enjoyed everything she has written but this book is just something else; Queen Milly just took it to another level. And that cover and that synopsis just doesn't give any of what lies within the pages away!
This book deals with grief, not the most cheerful of topics but it is what gives this book its heart and soul and so you instantly sympathise with all of the characters and the situation that they are in. We get to meet a grief counselling group that meet at a cafe that Milly Johnson readers will be familiar with. I loved the crew that meet here and their cakes and their banter. They each come to grief from a different direction and bring a new perspective and they each have a little something extra either bringing them more pain or more joy in their lives. I loved meeting them and I so enjoyed being entertained by as well as crying with them throughout the book.
The main characters that this story follow though are Laurie and Pete and this is pretty much a narrative that switches between their two lives and the stories that they each bring to the book. Their stories are so intertwined right from the beginning, beautifully and cleverly so but they just don't know it yet. I LOVE when you, as a reader, know something that the characters don't know yet. The pleasure of not knowing when or how they're going to find out. It keeps you turning the pages and ensures that you're ultra invested in these characters.
Both Laurie and Pete are incredibly easy to love. They just have so much heart and such optimism in the face of tragedy, you can just tell that they are full of love and yet Milly throws so much at them you really hope that they're going to come out the other side unscathed. Laurie works at a solicitor for one of Milly Johnson's other famous characters, the Daily Trumpet and Pete works as a heroic fireman with an equally heroic and hairy twin brother-what is not to love about these two. It was a joy to spend time with both of them!
Obviously this book does deal with grief in many different forms and so care warnings should be exercised here but it is just such an integral part of the story as well as the fact that we don't always know what is going on in other people's relationships. This is something that this writer deals with so well in so many of her novels, but this is in no way an 'issues' book. I loved the sensitivity with which all of the things that the various characters are dealing with are woven and written into the plot and I defy anyone to call this novel anything but uplifting and hopeful.
If you are a long time reader of Milly's novels, some familiar faces come out to play in My One True North and it was such a joy to see them. If you are new to this authors works then you picked a great place to start because this is the best one yet!
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