Are we where we truly should be? Where we belong with those who love us absolutely? These questions are at the heart of ‘The Frequency of Us’, a novel that defies genres and offers in one sweep romance, elements of the supernatural and hints of a ghost.

I was propelled by explosive force into the book as German bombs fall upon the city of Bath on the fateful night of 26th April 1942. Amongst the terror of the barrage of explosions Will Emerson, a young wireless engineer, dashes to rescue a neighbour’s son who is in Will’s radio workshop. Heading back across the long garden he sees his Austrian wife, Elsa Klein shouting a warning to him; a warning he fails to heed and instead, looking up he sees a bomb heading their way … then there is the light.

At this moment Will’s life and those around him are changed beyond one’s wildest imagination.
He awakens to a world without Elsa, where seemingly no one knows of her and his house has returned to its earlier bachelor self.

Already thoroughly hooked by the superb narrative the novel quickly moves seventy years into the future and introduces Laura James, a young woman whose life is defined by her emotional abuse by her father which led to her chronic anxiety and depression. As her first job back after her breakdown which included strong antidepressants, Laura is assigned as a carer to an elderly gentleman, to assess his needs and possible removal from his rundown home. A house that feels haunted. The home of Will Emerson.

The two are opposites in many ways, Will’s curmudgeonly nature almost drives Laura away, yet they are oddly drawn to each other, finding a form of understanding and gradually she becomes convinced his memories of Elsa and life pre-1942 are not signs of dementia but actual events. Laura’s tenacious research threatens to break her down once again and as she meets people from his earlier years, discovers events from the night of the bombing, Will’s and Laura’s lives become irrevocably intertwined.

Throughout a refrain used constantly by Will and one she heard as young from her father runs through her head: “Everything is always happening.” Somehow this seems the key, but how?

At one particularly low point, suffering from suspected severe medication withdrawal side-effects, Laura reflects wryly: “We are not credible witnesses to our own life.” Of course, the truth is far more complex, immersive and emotionally wrought.

As the mystery deepens the author’s deft handling of the complicated strands of the plot creates an intense read. Only afterwards did I fully appreciate all the clever details which foreshadowed the nail-biting final section of the book. I read like one possessed, racing to finish the book yet rueing the moment I would reach its end.
‘The Frequency of Us’ unfolds through a series of alternating first-person narratives of war-time Will and modern-day Laura. These are interspersed with the occasional voice of other characters which reinforce the story, all created with Keith Stuart’s natural flair.

From the first, I was completely enthralled by ‘The Frequency of Us’, hooked by the combination of heartwarming and vibrant romance and confusing conflicting paranormal events. Will, Laura and the myriad of other characters are portrayed with heart and skill, quickly entering my psyche and remaining there.

This is a superb and original third novel by Keith Stuart and as with ‘A Boy Made of Blocks’ and ‘Days of Wonder’, a book that will stay with me and I highly recommend. I’m eagerly awaiting his next book!

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest and impartial review.

This was not what I expected at all but I mean that in a positive way.

The book follows Laura, a woman trying to battle her mental health while working as a social worker. Her new case turns out to be very complicated as everyone seems to think he has dementia but Laura thinks otherwise. She believes Will’s story about his beloved long lost wife Elsa and what really happened during the war. Laura is determined to figure out what happened to Elsa and help Will in any way she can.

This story switches between the war and current timelines so you not only follow Laura’s perspective but you get a historical point of view of Elsa and Will’s past. I really liked this aspect and was really intrigued as to how the past would meet up with the present. I feel like this story had a beautiful magical touch and I was hooked on knowing what was going on and whether Will really had dementia or if his stories were true and if so, what really happened.

Laura had a lot personally going on that every so often would become a plot point for a chapter or two then disappear again. While I was intrigued as to what she had going on and why she’d moved back home, I felt like the father situation was a bit confusing. (Also painful to read about the way he treated her and the toxic environment she lived in...) I just personally felt like it was just convenient to drag her father into the story more towards the end and make him a more relevant part of the story, I could of done without it.

But over all I did enjoy this story and I would recommend this book to others.

A beautifully written tale, of love, lives and believe it or not time travel. The characters were likable and relatable which made it easier to read. The author portrays Bath in such a beautiful way you wish you were there. This book was different and refreshing from my last few reads. I definitely recommend it.

This is a very moving story of two traumatised individuals trying to make sense of a world in which they both feel alone, and like outsiders. It is a story of undying love, of loss, of fear, of desperation and of hope.
Will Emerson is near the end of his long life, living alone in a mouldy, crumbling house in Bath. Suspected of having dementia, and being incapable of looking after himself, he longs for the past when he was truly happy, with the love of his life – Elsa. Only, no-one else can remember Elsa. Nothing remains to say that she ever existed. Has he made her up?
“I ended up back in hospital for several weeks. The doctors told me it was trauma or brain damage. I had all these memories that were bright and vibrant and alive, but they didn’t fit with what the world was telling me – they were like pieces of the wrong jigsaw. …
The rest of the war, the years afterwards, I can barely remember them. It was like sleepwalking. I began to fear that everything I had experienced before the bomb was a dream. When I started to pull myself together, I couldn’t face searching for answers and then finding out the woman I loved was some figment of my imagination. So I clung to the journals I didn’t even recall writing and I hoped they were memories and not stories.’”

Laura is a young woman, with no self-confidence and in a state of constant fear of failure and rejection. Some trauma (we gradually discover what) has made her flee university life in London, back home to her mother in Bath, a broken person. As a favour to her mother, Laura is offered a job with a care agency, to care for Will, and to assess whether he can remain in his house, or needs to go into a care home.
As Will slowly starts to trust Laura, he shows her his journals about his life with Elsa, and she takes it as her mission to determine whether Elsa did indeed exist, and whether she was part of Will’s life:
“I want to believe it’s possible,’ I say. ‘A love affair so brilliant and beautiful that nothing dims it, not even after sixty years. I’d like to know such a thing exists.’”

The Elsa in the journals is such a remarkable, wonderful cosmopolitan woman – a gifted pianist, a lover of arts, and an attractive Austrian Jewess, who escaped to Britain before the war. It is no wonder that shy Will fell madly in love with her. Like Will and Laura, you – as the reader – also believe that she must be real. The world would surely be a much poorer place without her in it. But how could she disappear so completely?
Doubts assail Laura as she hits one dead end after another. It is just one more failure in a life full of disappointments.
“This is still a tale told by a nearly ninety-year-old man with signs of dementia to a woman who dropped off an antidepressant cliff edge and is hitting every withdrawal symptom on the way down. We are not credible witnesses to our own lives.”

Will’s collection of old wireless radios plays a big part in the book, but it is not until about three quarters of the way through, that the title of the book starts to make sense. There are many twists, and just as you think everything is sorted – some new information comes to light.
I had so many theories – discarded one after the other – as I read the book. But always I was captivated by the story, anxious to see how it would turn out.
The main characters are so beautifully developed, and so very real. You become really involved in their journey. The depiction of mental health issues is sympathetic, and you cheer for Laura as she gradually becomes more confident and assured, and fear for Will as he slides towards the oblivion of old age.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a gentle mystery with a little romance, and a touch of history.
“Life is a radio dial; we travel along it from left to right, and on the way we discover stations that we fall in love with and cherish – then we move on and lose them. But those stations aren’t gone. They’re still transmitting. If you listen very closely, you hear their ghosts amid the static. The people we’ve loved and think we have lost, the things that moved us, they are always there, they are bright and alive, somewhere on the dial. You just have to listen.”

Wow, just wow. What a beautiful, moving novel that spans decades and tangles the reader up in the lives of the characters.

The story starts in 1942 with Will Emerson at home, in bed as a bomber raid starts on the city. Seeing someone in his shed in the garden he goes to investigate, much to the horror of his wife Elsa. In his shed he discovers the young boy from a few houses along who has come to get a message to his father via the radio's that Will keeps in the shed. Grabbing the boy, Will runs back to the house but a bomb is dropped on the house and Will never makes it back inside to Elsa. The last thing he remembers is being encased in white light, and then waking up in hospital. Discharging himself from hospital he heads home to find Elsa only to discover that no one else was inside the house - and every trace of Elsa is gone.

Fast forward to 2008. Laura has taken a temporary job in care while she picks up the pieces of her broken life. Her assignment is to work with a elderly man living in a crumbling house. She is told he is angry and cantankerous and Social Services need him assessed so they can work out if he needs to go into care or can manage at home with support. Laura reluctantly accepts the assignment and goes to visit him. And here the two worlds collide.

Laura finds Will to be reluctant to engage with anyone but for some reason he is only willing to accept help from her. He eventually opens up to her about his story and how he is trying to find Elsa and work out what happened all those years ago. Laura begins digging into the past to try and find out just what happened Will and Elsa and she learns something about herself and her demons along the way.

Laura's struggles with anxiety are very real and written wonderfully realistically. The city and characters are beautifully created and I love how Keith Stuart can convey a sense of place in just a few words.

I can honestly say, Keith Stuart is becoming one of my favourite writers.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.
I finished this yesterday and am still left reeling about it, trying to figure out how I feel about this book and going over the multidimensional timelines in my head.
The story is set in Bath in WW2 with the meeting of Will and Elsa, and then flips to the current day to Laura who is now Wills carer.
Laura ends up helping Will to find out what really happened to Elsa after the war, but Laura has anxiety problems of her own and Will ends up helping her in return by giving her a purpose. The characters are very relatable and you can’t help feeling invested and wanting to know how the two stories are going to come together.
I admit I found the ending a little confusing and had to go back and re-read it but I think that’s because I’m not used too science fiction.
On reflection the story is endearing with beautiful writing and a plot that makes you devour it.

I saw a review of this book on the lovely Nicki’s (aka Secret Library Book Blog) blog site. Since then I have been patiently waiting to get an approval from NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group. When I finally got the approval I decided to do this as a buddy read with my good friends Meg Readz and Clare.

I love a good mystery and throwing in some romance I knew this would be right up my street. When I first started reading I fell in love with Will. He was your typical elderly gentleman who wasn’t afraid to voice his opinion and was stuck in his ways. I loved revisiting his past with Elsa and their courtship, it reminded me a lot of how my grandparents met and their story. I’m often envious of the traditions and would love to be a fly on the wall of the 1930/40’s.

Laura was a character that I felt went on the biggest journey. She started off as this insecure, quiet, anxiety riddled young woman which made her very relatable but from the moment she met Will I knew not only would she solve the mystery but he would help her. I hadn’t quite envisaged just how much though. Laura was a very well developed character and right up until the last chapter I felt the author had done her journey justice. I could see a lot of similarities between Laura and Elsa which was probably what drew Will to her in the first place.

Laura’s father was another interesting character. At the start I thought that he was just a character that would be mentioned from time to time as someone that had contributed to Laura’s anxiety, I hadn’t foreseen how his story would end. Whilst I don’t condone his treatment of Laura I could see he was just another soul struggling to find his place. His story was the one that touched me most.

The whole mystery surrounding Elsa kept me intrigued throughout. Where we flipped between current and past events I kept asking myself was she real? I’d convince myself that she was and then something would happen to make me doubt myself, god knows how Will carried on for so long! There was a point in the book where I had the ‘did I just read that right’ moment and I had to reread to make sure, from then on I couldn’t stop myself from reading and had to know what had happened to Elsa. I thought the final solution was well delivered and in my opinion it was the only way the story could of ended.

Once my fellow buddies and I had finished reading we were all in agreement that we loved the story and the characters. They were flawed, relatable and certainly memorable. We also had a big discussion about the final conclusion and felt it was a very thought provoking ending, definitely one that will cause a lot of discussions. Everything about this book screamed nostalgia and we loved learning about radio transmissions and getting a glimpse of Bath during WW2. We have also added Keith Stuart’s other books to our reading list!

I really loved this sweet, gentle story set in Bath in two time frames. Will is such an endearing character and Laura's mental health issues are covered so sympathetically, your heart goes out to both of them. Without giving too much away, the story centres on a sort of sliding doors, time slip scenario. This is essentially a love story starting during WWII, but the world is sent out of kilter when Bath is subjected to a night of bombing. I have read other books of this type but not so well executed.
My only disappointment was with the ending and the introduction of a new character on the last page. I'm not sure why this was done rather than resolve some of the other issues raised during the rest of the novel. I don't think it added anything.
That said this is a well crafted, beautifully written book.

This review may contain spoilers:

A ravishing love story between Will and Elsa, ripped apart by an explosion that causes a fracture in the multiverse. Not a typical adult romance book at all. It is so much more. If you put this book into that genre then class it the same as The Time Traveller’s Wife.
I have not enjoyed a book this much in years. A stunningly beautiful voice and a warmly sensitive book by Keith Stuart. At times, my heart was in my mouth and a cliffhanger on every chapter kept me wanting more.
All of the characters have been given their own stage, they are crafted so well. And I can really see them within their own books. They are captivating, colourful, have many layers and intertwine each other beautifully. The old woman who stands watching from the window, a very small part, but captured beautifully and she is still relevant to the story. The little boy who strays from his house to Will’s shed because he wants to speak to his RAF pilot Daddy on the radio, to ask him to stop the bombers from coming; such a bittersweet moment.

I found the subject of mental health was sensitively captured within the book and made relevant to the story as a whole. I felt a deep sense of Laura’s anxiety and daily struggles but at the same time, a determination to do something, anything, to help her friend Will who was overcome with grief.

The concept of the multiverse was not lost on me and Stuart managed to make it more about fate and emotion rather than the theories of science. And I loved how this played out for everyone in the end.

Being a born and bred Bathonian myself made Stuart’s detailed descriptions of the city, a personal delight. It was a celebration of Bath, its architectural and social scene during late 1930s, early 1940s to which I found fascinating. His attention to detail in his descriptions showed a clear love for Bath and this actually gave another level to the story itself. I was given a new perspective on a city that had become so familiar in my life, I stopped ‘seeing’ it.

As said, I would not classify this book as a typical romance or general fiction even, it is more science fiction than general fiction.

Really looking forward to the next Keith Stuart novel. Thank you to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Beautifully written love story that is so astonishingly good. Is it a ghost story, a mystery novel or an homage to Bath? It's all of those things and more! Memorable characters, especially Elsa, who I could see and hear clearly throughout the book. I was excited to receive this book as an ARC as I am a huge fan of Keith Stuart. The problem with his last two books being so magnificent, is that I approached this one with some trepidation. What if it wasn't as good? I need not have worried. This book entranced me with the story of Will and Elsa. I will be recommending this book to all my friends.

Laura, at 29, is back living with her mum after a traumatic time in London. She is now in Bath, employed as a carer. Her first client is Will, a truculent octogenarian. He is caught up in memories of the past, when he suffered during the bombing in Bath during the second world war. Laura recognises a connection between them and determines to solve the mystery.
I found this book intriguing and could not put it down. I am not a fan of fantasy or science fiction but I have always been interested in the physical dimensions of time. Whilst this book does not provide answers it does challenge ideas and beliefs.
I loved it, although I found Laura wimpish to begin with, I found I could empathise with her as the story developed.
A very enjoyable read.

What an intriguing, exciting novel. Laura becomes a carer for Will who has a fascinating story to tell - is he suffering from dementia or not? This is what Laura has to decide. Another fascinating and enjoyable read from Keith.

Keith Stuart is a wonderfu author who writes engaging and well written books about totally different stories. A true talent. This one, The Frequency of Us, is a mash up of my two favourite genres - WW2 fiction and time travel/lapse. Will, Elsa and Laura are engaging characters if not always likeable. The setting in Bath is unusual but welcome as it's not often used as the setting in modern novels. Overall an excellent read which I would have demolished in a single sitting if I had started it earlier on the first day. With thanks to the publishers for an invitation to read and review an -_ARC of this title and to Netgalley for providing the means with which to do so .

This is a charming and engaging story about Will, an elderly man living on his own, and Laura, a young woman who is suffering from depression and anxiety who, working for a care agency, is assigned to find out whether he is capable of living on his own or whether he has dementia. To begin with, the plot appears to be a domestic drama but it soon develops into a different story exploring the theory of multiple universes and what happens when a chance event shifts you from the life you are living into one where a different choice means a very different life. With shifting timelines and viewpoints it takes us from the 1940s blitz to the first decade of the 21st century and is a compelling read. The multi-verse fantasy element does not dominate or distract from the growing friendship between Will and Laura and the delightful love story at the heart of the book.

A lovely story told in two time frames - did occasionally find myself getting muddled but the dates at the top of each chapter helped me to work out whose time frame I was in.

Laura is a carer, given a job to find out if Will is able enough to live in his house he has lived in on his own for 60 years, or if he is suffering from dementia and W needs residential care. However, Laura finds Will to be very reluctant and she soon finds herself researching things about his life so she can find something in common between them.

I enjoyed this book very much, it went along at a steady pace, making me want to turn the pages to see what was happening. Then the ending - I expected something totally different and was left feeling rather confused when I turned the final page. Hence the 4 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoy Keith Stuart's writing, he writes in such a way that you can't help but be drawn into the story and the characters are so well drawn that you immediately feel attached to them. This book has a kind of sliding doors concept to it, it is set in the (almost) present day and also during the Bath blitz of 1942. I love WW2 history so this aspect of the book was fantastic. However, I did find myself getting a bit confused as I find it hard to relate to time travel/supernatural elements in books. That is not a criticism, this is a lovely well written story, it is just a genre preference for me in not relating to that side of the book as well as probably most people will.

I enjoyed Keith Stuart's previous two books, but this one tries something different and it didn't quite work for me, perhaps because I guessed the ending pretty quickly and had to wait for the characters to catch up. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

There’s something about the way Keith Stuart writes that is just soothing to me, he just has such a calm way with words. I loved The Boy Made of Blocks and this was no different. Jumping between the 1940s and present day this was a brilliantly researched novel, a beautiful story with a unique concept. I loved it.

This is a well researched and very unusual story about the way our pasts define us and the paths we choose to take. Flipping between the 1940s memories that octogenarian Will is convinced are real despite a total lack of evidence otherwise and more recent times when carer Laura is required to assess his ability to stay safe at home as well as his mental acuity this is a lovely character story with some complex but believable relationships. I felt Wills confusion and fear were well written however I thought that Laura’s character was very well represented most in particular in terms of her anxiety, you could appreciate it as the genuine illness it is. This took on different dimensions to my usual reads however at heart it’s a tale of love and you can feel that throughout.

This was soo good read. And I just couldn't put this down. It os wonderfully witten book. And just can feel every emotion.
So good.
For stars for.me