Do you believe in coincidences and fate playing it’s hand in chance encounters? Do you think there is serendipity? Do you believe that there is higher power which decides whom and when you will find you soulmate? Your heart choosing love above all else but does it require a positive signal from your brain too?

If your answers are yes to all or most of these questions, then this book is a must read for you. Because although it’s a love story between two star crossed lovers, but what’s interesting to read is how fate plays it’s hand in bringing them together or sending them apart. Like two comets, crossing each other’s path but their orbits not merging till the very end; this story of Vincent And Joy keeps us hooked from the start till the Happy Ending.

The novel starts from Vince getting together with his college friends after a bitter, prolonged divorce where he is going to lose a piece of his heart for considerable amount of time. And then the storyline takes us in his past by Vince recalling his first encounter with Joy in a nondescript seaside town. Two hearts, vary with their own physical and mental struggles, immediately find solace within each other. It’s no surprise that they both equally feel like a deep rooted connection to their heart, that enormous happiness of completing each other- physically as well as emotionally.

But fate plays a big hand and they both go their own separate ways, each leading to a different life, but that feeling of not living up to one’s expectations never leaves either of them. Although, they think that they have found their own happinesses, built their own love nets but somehow, deep inside them they know that there is nothing as it should be, which can fulfil their soul searching.

Then those chance encounters, missed opportunities, misunderstandings, few friendly hugs and one particular cat, keeps them close but not connected- Fully aware of each other’s existence but out of one’s reach. The author gives these fateful crossings in such tender details that it doesn’t feel cliched.

Because of an accomplished, excellent writer like Lisa Jewell, the story doesn’t become all too sappy and boring. Although, you can guess the ending, still this romance novel doesn’t prove to be another run-of-the-mill romantic fiction. We, readers can very much relate to the main protagonists, understand their world views and chuckle about their seemingly unsuitable life choices. It’s true that you can very well find the end part in Joy’s story to be a bit more than realistic, still it feels like minor distraction, not hindering the readers to look forward expectantly towards the sweet end.

So for all those lovers of good, old fashioned romance, I would ask you to go ahead and add this book in your reading list.