The first book I ever read by Alice Peterson was One Step Closer to You, a beautiful yet emotional read that I quite clearly remember not being able to put down. From that moment on I knew I had an author to follow in Alice Peterson and was, therefore, delighted when a few months ago I heard about her latest novel, The Things We Do for Love. Having eagerly anticipated its release I couldn’t wait to download it on my kindle when the ebook publication date finally came around and I can truly say it did not disappoint me in the slightest.
January Wild is a woman who it’s safe to say has experienced a lot of upset and trauma in her life. After her parents died when she was a baby, both January and her brother Lucas went to live with their grandparents who were everything grandparents should be and much more. They took the children under their wings and treated them as their own, doing everything they possibly could to keep them both happy and safe.
However, as January grew older her troubles kept on coming as, after falling pregnant at a young age with the dad not wanting to know, she became a single mother to a daughter with cerebral palsy. Despite all of this January is nothing but a grafter, providing for her daughter by going to work on a daily basis in an estate agents. It may not sound like the most glamorous or exciting of jobs but all this might be about to change for our January, particularly with the arrival of the new boss, Ward, on the scene.
The Things We Do for Love was one of those books that jumped around quite a bit from speaking about the present to speaking about what happened in the past. Now sometimes books which do this can be a bit offputting to me as, previously, I have found some of such books quite hard to follow but I can say with certainty that this did not happen with this book. Alice Peterson wrote with such clarity, amalgamating the past with the present with such ease that is was impossible not to keep up with what was going on. Quite often an event in the present of January’s life would trigger a memory from the past.
What I found so lovely about this particular book was seeing the way that January never gave up and always, with the support of her amazing grandparents and wonderful friends, kept going. It was a book which really did seem to demonstrate the power of not only friendship but love - the way that nothing will or should ever be too much trouble for those you love. Being just as close to my grandparents as January is to hers I also loved reading of the relationship that January had with them and thought that January’s grandmother was a lady with a lot of wise words to offer.
