This was a compelling and - in parts - incredibly moving storyline with raw, relatable characters that weren’t afraid to show their vulnerability and flaws. It’s written beautifully and is only marked down as the concept is one that I’m slightly sceptical of, but I’d give it 4.5 stars overall! This is my first read from Emma Cooper and it certainly won’t be my last.

*Thanks to Netgalley and Headline for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

The previous Emma Cooper book I’ve read was full of emotion from the start and this one was no different and was a definite page turner full of intrigue.
I loved the two timelines- showing so much of the character of both Ella and Will. The reasons for future events became clearer as we explored their pasts.
This is a story full of love and emotion and the strength in the friendships was wonderful read about, and often had me laughing one minute and crying the next.

What can I say except WOW. Once I started reading It Was Always You by Emma Cooper I didn’t want to stop but I also didn’t want to reach the end. I loved this story it had me laughing and crying it was an emotional roller coaster. If there’s one book you’re going read this summer then this is it, it will not disappoint. I will be recommending it to everyone.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Heartfelt and well written, an absolutely great novel. Will definitely be looking out for more by this author.

1999 - Ella was spending an October night with Will and Cole - one of them who would end up being her future husband, not as though she knows it yet. The next morning, she regrets how much she drank because she can almost remember a strange conversation with a woman wearing a green coat and a red scarf - it seemed important, but it's soon forgotten.

2002 - Ella is married to Will, but their relationship is falling apart, and her best friend Cole is breaking down too. The last 23 years she's spent building a life is crumbling down around her. But then she receives a gift - a green coat, and a red scarf. And suddenly that dream, or that drunken memory suddenly feel too real - and she has to ask herself, as October draws to a close, what she would do if she could just go back and tell herself what to do.

A warm story full of heart and love, about the many different paths our lives could take that we'd never be able to foresee. It filled me with undeniable nostalgia for times gone by, for youth and friends, for music and old loves.

The characters were undeniably relatable - anybody who has ever felt they're drifting out of control and wondering where they could go next will be able to connect and easily love with the characters who become recognisable and familiar as the pages go on.

A bittersweet story full of emotion but lots of fun!

If you could go back and change things would you? The life you have lived the choices that you have made all up for you to change.
The life that you have loved, your kids, husband and your marriage. You have always been besotted with your husband but always felt that he settled for you. Your husband feels that you married him by default and your best friend has been in love with you since being a teenager.
Can things be unravelled and still move forward or will it come crashing down? I became invested in all the characters and loved the story.

This is going to be tough to review without divulging any spoilers but I will just start with how brilliant it is. We are introduced to Will and Ella who met as teenagers and are now married with two grown up children but a marriage that is in trouble. We are taken back to the start of their relationship and are able to watch it unfold and grow. Always in the background (and often foreground) is Cole, Ella’s best friend.

The story is told mainly from Ella’s perspective but Will and Cole also have their stories too.

Without giving any spoilers, this is a fabulous book, full of emotion and very definitely a book you can loose yourself in and the ending did not disappoint either.

What a fabulous book this was, I absolutely loved it!
The storyline was so good and very well written. I don’t always get on with books that jump backwards and forwards between timelines, but the way this was done made it easy to keep track and each time the timeline moved it was integral to the story.
The characters were really well developed throughout the story and I very quickly became totally invested in them and fell in love with all three of the leads. They were so well written that it was easy to picture them as real people.
This is one of my favourite books this year and I highly recommend it.
My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review.

I loved reading this and found it hard to put down! Told over two timelines, Ella and Will fall in love as teenagers and then it all goes wrong when their children both leave home. I thought the way it was written describing them getting together as teens and then trying to stay together as adults was really well done and the other characters added so much to the storyline. The ending although sad was perfect and I loved it! Highly recommend x

It Was Always You By Emma Cooper.

This was my first book by this Author and from having read the Blurb on Netgalley I thought I would really reading this story but unfortunately there was just something about it that I didn't connect to.

On the last night in October 1999 the clocks go back and that's where Ella and Wills love story begins, at the bonfire after the Autumn fair, with Ella's best friend Cole also present, for the first piece in the puzzle.

Ella then comes across a women in a green coat and red scarf, but had she just had to much to drink?
Until 23 years later Ella opens a gift which will change her life as she thought she knew it.
A green coat and red scarf...

The story continues to follow the life's of Ella, Will and Cole and goes between Then and Now.
I found it hard to connect to the older versions of the characters until Ella Started to date Will again.
I found it easier to connect to the teenage versions of them but it took me a while to get into the book and it wasn't the easiest read at the beginning. Its only because I don't give up on books why I continued with this story, however once I got more connected with the older versions of the characters I was more invested in the story and shocked at the ending but in a good twist way.

You can read this book from its publication date of 1st September 2022

I would like to thank headline books and netgalley for letting me read this book ahead of publication.

Rating: 4/5 stars ⭐️

Ella and Will are childhood sweethearts. Their story begins in late October 1999, the night the clocks go back. The pair are at the town fair with some friends, drinking a little too much, being typical teenagers. Will noticing Ella being quite drunk, escorts her home. The next day, Elle recollects a conversation with a woman wearing a red scarf and a green coat. What was said? She cannot remember.

23 years later, in the present, Ella and Will have just waved goodbye to their son as he sets off for university. They walk in their house, close the door, and Will asks Ella for a divorce… the day before her birthday. On her birthday she opens her gifts from her two children … a red scarf and a green coat. It couldn’t be, could it? Is she the woman her teenage self saw back on that October evening of 1999?
Refusing to accept her husbands revelation and wanting to fight for her marriage, Ella takes on the task of trying to win back her husband, and also working out the mystery of the woman in the red scarf. Was it a warning of what was to come? Can she change it?

The story is told over two timelines, then, when Ella and Will’s relationship begins and everything they go through and overcome, and now, as Ella faces the reality of losing Will forever. I don’t normally enjoy going back and forth with timelines but I can honestly say I really enjoyed it and I didn’t prefer one timeline to another, I was always looking forward to what happened next in both timelines.

This was my first read from Emma Cooper and I enjoyed every page.

Trigger warnings: Parent loss, sibling loss, grief, alcohol abuse.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

I loved It Was Always You by Emma Cooper. I loved the main characters Ella, Will and Cole, their relationship story and how this evolved through the novel. The premise that you can change the past is such an interesting idea, coupled with the inherent inevitability of the present. My first Emma Cooper novel and won't be my last!
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow what a story. I really enjoyed this book, the characters are spot on and relatable.

I really enjoy books with past and present chapters, I feel like it gives you more of a perspective of what the characters have experienced and overcome, or not overcome in some cases.

The whole story from start to finish was amazing and gripped me, pulling me in as if I was standing in the midst of them.

It was emotional (Happy and sad) and heartbreaking but also incredibly heart warming with misunderstandings fought to overcome.

I really thought I would enjoy this book as the blurb sounds right up my street. Afraid I just couldn’t get into the writing style - everything is so over described; far too many superfluous words. Rather than painting a vivid picture it completed turned me off. It reminded me of reading a GCSE English language exam paper. It’s also quite an American writing style though appears to be set in England. I didn’t find any of the characters relatable and found the story really boring.
I’m grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy in return for this honest review.

A lovely, lovely book. The relationship between the two main characters is just lovely. I really enjoyed it and recommend it highly.

Every now and then, I get a craving for a heartwarming, epic love story and that’s exactly what I expected from this book. Told in such a unique way, I couldn’t stop turning the pages as the drama unfolded and I just had to see how things were going to end for these characters.

Ella and Will’s love story began the night the clocks went back in October 1999. Ella remembers a conversation with a woman that night but wakes up the next morning with only bits of memory. 23 years later, Ella and Will’s marriage is in trouble and her oldest friend Cole’s life is spiralling out of control. The clocks are about to go back again and Ella realises that she has a choice -if she could, would she go down a different path?

A lot of the plot happens because Ella thinks that she isn’t good enough for Will. She feels incredibly lucky to be with him and I found myself wanting to tell her that she was so much better than her own opinion of herself. While I really enjoyed her character and am well aware that women like her exist everywhere, I really wanted to give her a shake at times!

There is so much history between all three points of this love triangle and it makes for some very intense dynamics between them. I loved watching this build as I discovered more about their shared past and how it threatened to completely rock the peace that they’d apparently all found in adulthood.

I have to say that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Cole. I loved that he did eventually go on a redemption arc but by then, I was just really annoyed by him constantly showing up in Ella and Will’s life and generally being a burden. He’s a very complex character and I understand that he has a multitude of issues that have made him who he is but sadly, I kept wanting him to just leave his friends and their family alone. His story is a very sad one and it’s definitely the most heartbreaking aspect of the narrative.

The humour isn’t everywhere -this definitely isn’t a rom-com- but I did laugh out loud at the bits that were there. Most of it comes from Ella’s parents and brothers and I would have loved to have spent more time with them because the majority of the story is so heart-wrenching. Could we maybe have a spin-off following one of her brothers’ love stories?

There is a time travel element (sort of) to the book and I found this fascinating. Ella seeks the help of a hypnotist to ‘go back’ to the day that she and Will began dating -the night a woman was trying to tell her something. Through these sessions, the idea of memory and glitches in the space-time continuum crop up and I had so much fun figuring out what that was all about and what actually happened all those years before. It was a unique twist to the story and added a level of mystery to an otherwise bleak romance.

It Was Always You is a thought-provoking, page-turning story that I tried my best to figure out before the end. I was convinced I knew what was going to happen… and then something else happened that threw me off that course. The ending will sting and although it makes perfect sense, it’s truly heartbreaking sense. A strong ‘you may throw this book across the room’ warning should be plastered on the cover!

I thought that I would step out of my usual genres and try this book. But as I struggled to connect with the characters, it didn't work for me .Sorry my fault for requesting it, and hope other readers enjoy it more.

It Was Always You is an absolutely stunning wonderful read, immensely absorbing and page turning with a cast of characters that show great depth with their joys and sorrows jumping off the pages.
I feel I cannot write a full synopsis as it’s hard to without giving anything away. I loved Will and Emma and their families, so much love and humour, and Cole whose troubled soul was heartbreaking as he spiralled out of control. Moving seamlessly from present to the past it told a moving story of three people whose lives were inter linked.
Towards the end my heart was pounding dreading what was going to happen to these main characters, I was jumping to conclusions and could not work out how everything would play out.
I’ve enjoyed all this authors books but this is by far my favourite, I’m often asked to recommend books for local book reading clubs, this one is going to the top of the list.
My thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to review this book honestly.

Thank you to NetGalley and Headline for ARC of this book for an honest review.

This was my first Emma Cooper book and I LOVED it!!! From the first page to the last! It kept me guessing the whole way through - who was going to be her Always You?!
I grew attached to Will & Ella, I was willing their story all the way through.

It has made me question recent books I've rated as 5 star as this was so much more!! Easily a 5+ rating!!
Can't wait to find another Emma cooper book!!

Interesting concept, but one that I struggled to enjoy as I didn’t really feel emotionally connected to any of the characters and so didn’t really care what happened to them in the end. A bit of a disappointment as I did feel it had potential but it just wasn’t for me.