This is a lovely story of Abbie and Oz who meet as students and fall in love then Oz moves back to Istanbul. What follows is a story over 15 years as they keep meeting and rekindle their love each time.
A lovely romantic story of how love can conquer barriers such as Oz not speaking english.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book would highly recommend.
Thanks to Net Galley.

I was looking forward to reading this book from the synopsis and I was not disappointed.

Abbie and Oz are great characters who you want to be happy.

A heartwarming book that a great easy read

Thank you to #NetGalley for the advance copy of #ItMustBeLove by #CarolineKhoury
I promise you will cry, you will be so involved in Abbie’s story everything else will be put on hold.
Don’t start reading if you have to be up early tomorrow. A true heartwarming love story.
It must be love 🥰⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Totally loved this book, what a joy to read!!!
The story is told in flashbacks of now and then, spanning fifteen years. Abbie and Oz meet as idealistic students, and although from completely different communities, their connection and feelings run deep. Life of course gets in the way, but ultimately this is a great love story that had me cheering them on! The characters, friends and relatives are brilliantly depicted. The portrayal of the cultural differences lovingly shown.
These guys will stay with me for a while!! Just need some Lebanese food now!
Highly recommend this one!! Will look out for the next one from Caroline Khoury!! Her observations are inviting and enthralling!
Thank you NetGalley for the early read- brilliant!! Loved it!

Abbie and Oz have a romance spanning 15 years but every meeting only lasts a short time. Each time they meet, the love is rekindled. Could they make their love last ? He lives in Istanbul and she, in London. A wonderful story of enduring love. I could not wait to pick the story up and read some more.

Love stories that involve couples clearly destined to be together, but kept apart by circumstances can be deeply emotional. And It Must Be Love is certainly emotional. I can't say too much about the plot as it would spoil the story, but I will say, be prepared for a rollercoaster.

There is a lot to love in this book. Great friendships, philosophical questions about destiny, and what-ifs. Family and duty. But above all else, it is about the enduring nature of true love.

Oh, this book made my heart ache in places 💔

It centres around Abbie and Oz, who met when they were students and the story goes back and forth between the present day when Abbie has got engaged to her boyfriend Charlie at the age of 35, and the past where her numerous encounters with Oz unfold.

I do like the portrayal of Oz and his language, being a non English speaker is spot on. I love Liz, who adds a bit of reality and humour to the story, which is a great contrast to the tough feelings that Abbie has to deal with over the years.

There are some real heart breaking moments where I was close to tears as the emotions ran so high; and some moments where I thought Abbie was finally going to have happiness with what she had.

I loved the ending, but won’t spoil it for anyone!

We’ve all been there where there’s that one person who you feel has slipped through your heart time and time again; where you always wonder ‘what if..?’

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It’s a lovely read with lovely characters. Based around love and destiny and moving between timelines it was held my attention throughout. Love the fact that it moved between several locations and painted great pictures of each.. Overall a very nice read!

Aw this book totally spoke to the hopeless romantic in me, I didn't want to put it down and then felt sad that I had finished it.

Abbie meets Oz at a protest when they were at uni they spend a wonderful day together then go their separate ways. The book then follows them over 15 years throughout different times and places where they meet again sometimes by chance ... or is it destiny?

Abbie and Oz were wonderful full of depth and emotion and the other characters in the book all contributed to the story along with the different settings.

What a lovely story of destiny, fate, true love .. call it what you want .. iyi bir kitap

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the ARC

It Must be love by Caroline Khoury was an enjoyable will they or won’t they read about second chances, fate, destiny, family, and friendship. It had the perfect mix of romance and angst. I liked being on Abbie and Oz’s rollercoaster journey, even though it was a little frustrating at times. Whenever these two met, you could feel their connection and chemistry, and I was fully invested in their story.

There were plenty of secondary storylines that blended well into the main storyline and lots of lovely descriptions of the different locations the book is set in. Although there was an epilogue, I did feel the ending was a little sudden, and an extra few more pages would have been lovely. However, that being said, I would recommend this book, and I would definitely read more from Caroline Khoury.

Such an adorable read. Set over different timelines this was such the perfect escape read. Many thanks to the publisher for the ebook

A story of different times, different places. We follow the intertwined lives of Abbie and Oz, over time and in different countries. Can their romance rekindle, or is it all too much in the past?
This was a pleasant read but I didnt feel over involved in the story, although reading the descriptions of various countries was a joy.
Thank you to NetGalley for a review copy.

I loved this book. The characters were interesting and engaging. It was a really lovely love story with a fantastic ending. The book jumps about from past to present which I normally don’t enjoy but this was easy to follow in this book.

I fell in love with Abbie and oz from the start. What is destiny and what is fate?
A right place wrong time, right time wrong place romance which spanned over a decade. The depth to this story was fantastic and I struggled to put it down. In fact, I didn’t want it to end at all.
I cried more than once and smiled an uncountable number of times.
Caroline Khoury’s debut is one for my shelves, I need a physical copy of this to read again and again.

This was a really decent read I found I really liked the main character Abbie and could feel the connection she shared with Oz. I also liked the contrast in the setting between the UK and Turkey.

This is a real slow burn and does take time to build. I would have preferred a chronological order as I got a bit lost at points and had to refer back.

I felt for Abbie a lot in this book and the author did really well to convey such emotion.

Good book

Abbie meets Oz at a protest in London, when she literally falls at his feet. Over the next fifteen years, they come in and out of each other's lives sometimes by chance and sometimes by design.
Will they ever be fully together, or is their destiny just to have fleeting and perfect moments?
I liked the characters in this book and it was refreshing that both of Abbie's love interests were good men and worthy of her affections.
My only concern was the endless waste of alcohol. Every time someone was carrying a drink, they spilled some of it!

When Oz and Abbie met they were young, idealistic students with an incredible connection. Then Oz returned to his home of Istanbul and their lives moved on...apart. Fate however has something different in mind and with Abbie on the cusp of marrying the man she thinks she wants to spend the rest a chance meeting brings them back together. A beautiful love story love story that transcends fifteen years and travels from London to Istanbul and Paris and Beirut.

What a rollercoaster! I loved this so much. A second chance love story that spans over 15 years. This book had me so invested in Abbie and Oz as they were both such likeable characters right from the very beginning. It really kept me on my toes and towards the end I honestly didn’t know which way it was going to go between Oz and Charlie and then just as you think it’s all on track something else comes and breaks your heart, my emotions really went through it with this one! It was also duel timeline which I really enjoyed and just overall had me enthralled from the very beginning.

I’m a huge fan of this type of romantic storyline and whilst in reality I don’t believe in fate and destiny I’m more than content to believe in the existence of these concepts as they guide fictional lovers towards their happy ever afters. Over the years I’ve read a deal of novels along the lines of It Must Be Love, all variants upon the same theme featuring unforgettable first loves and what if, sliding doors moments but my all time favourite has to be that modern day classic One Day by David Nicholls. So, a tough act for Caroline Khoury to follow!! No pressure then! However I like to think I approach each new novel the same way, my mind a blank canvas, waiting expectantly for the author’s words to fill that space with impossibly romantic fairy tale images, for my heart to swell with all the magic, sparkle and sentimentality this genre offers and for a gush of emotions to engulf me, as declarations of love are spoken and promises are made or broken. How do Abbie and Oz compare to the likes of Emma and Dexter?? Let’s find out!

Wistful, touching, tinged with regret and longing and plenty of “what could have been”scenarios, Caroline Khoury takes you on a wonderfully romantic journey traversing both time and continents, allowing the reader to visit some beautiful cities in the presence of Abbie and Oz who first meet as students in London. Conducting their tumultuous love affair over the span of fifteen years, the question forming on every reader’s lips is whether or not their story will have a happy ending. I love the idea that for some couples, including Abbie and Oz there exits an invisible thread connecting them which steadfastly refuses to be broken. Irrespective of distance or outside interference keeping them apart you can’t help but wonder if fate and destiny really will play a huge part in determining the future for this pair. Even if you have a fair idea of how things will eventually pan out there are a few scenes that will surprise you!

This is a good if nothing out of the ordinary romantic read; a perfectly pleasurable way to spend a lazy winter weekend, losing yourself in all the drama the storyline offers and I sped through the pages with ease. The narrative filled me with nostalgia for my (much!) younger days when life held so many possibilities and before one too many failed relationships left me deflated and demoralised and resigned to singledom!! Yet I still hang on to the belief that true love does exist (just not for me!) which is why I think I enjoy novels like It Must Be Love so much. Caroline Khoury allows you to daydream, affording you the opportunity to live vicariously through others even though the characters are only figments of the author’s imagination. Naturally it helps if the characters are ones you can easily warm to and take to your heart and on the whole I did that with Abbie and Oz. Everyone deserves a slice of happiness, to be with the one individual their heart truly desires and none more so than these two who maintain a fierce loyalty towards their respective families, selflessly placing others happiness before their own. I felt every bit of Abbie and Oz’s pain and their joy as their lives continually collide and then separate in a storyline that is full of emotional highs and lows. They make a cute couple if only circumstances were more favourable! Although I liked Abbie and Oz enormously I can’t say I was totally besotted with these star crossed lovers. Sorry! Instead I fell more in love with visions of the places their paths crossed, in particular Istanbul, rather than the characters themselves. Once again I felt a certain amount of nostalgia for the days when travelling was less problematic but visiting Paris, Beirut, Istanbul and even London from the comfort of my home was a good enough substitute.

The downside of this novel for me was that it became repetitive and slightly drawn out so that I ended up feeling rather frustrated with the way Abbie and Oz’s lives kept going round in circles. The storyline started to lose its shine and is impact, something which could be rectified if a couple of the scenes towards the end of the book were cut out. However I’m sure there’s plenty of readers who will disagree with this observation. Also in my opinion the mark of a top notch romantic read is one that provokes intense emotions; as bizarre as it sounds I’m especially fond of a storyline that makes me cry! Unfortunately I didn’t feel the intensity of emotion I’d hoped for and neither did the author manage to bring a tear to my eye but overall It Must Be Love is a very commendable debut novel.

My thanks as always to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.

Khoury's "It Must Be Love" is the ideal romance read for when you want to take your mind off of stressful things; pure romanticism, contemporary and relatable, quick and easy, heartwarming and unputdownable.