If you’re looking for a memorable, beautifully written, heart-wrenching book, Everything Happens for a Reason by Katie Allen is your next read.

The plot:

Mum-to-be Rachel did everything right, but it all went wrong. Her son, Luke, was stillborn and she finds herself on maternity leave without a baby, trying to make sense of her loss.

When a misguided well-wisher tells her that “everything happens for a reason”, she becomes obsessed with finding that reason, driven by grief and convinced that she is somehow to blame. She remembers that on the day she discovered her pregnancy, she’d stopped a man from jumping in front of a train, and she’s now certain that saving his life cost her the life of her son.

Desperate to find him, she enlists an unlikely ally in Lola, an Underground worker, and Lola’s seven-year-old daughter, Josephine, and eventually tracks him down, with completely unexpected results…

I can’t pinpoint why I loved it so much, but I just know that I did

Listen, I went into this knowing there were dogs and ‘everything happens for a reason’ being one of my favourite sayings, so it was already going to be a good read. I didn’t expect it to be this brilliant!

There are some parts of this which are difficult to read, as you can imagine from the synopsis. I can imagine it being triggering, especially with some of the outsider comments you pick up on.

I loved the writing – just exquisite. With the formatting as emails, you really get that one-sided impression and I adored this perspective (although sometimes questionable) from the protagonist, Rachel. This book has “just one more page” written all over it – good luck finding a place to stop!

There are little twists and turns to keep you intrigued (although I was just loving this reading experience so I couldn’t put it down anyway), and I found myself chuckling, or more often than not, my heart went out to Rachel and found myself teary-eyed.

The themes of grief and finding who you are, reliance on others, and after effects of two traumatic experiences means Everything Happens for a Reason completely envelopes the reader – this is a story which will absolutely stick with me.

It didn’t end in the cliché way I thought it would, which I appreciate SO much. This really is a strong female-character led book trying to understand and get through her loss and finding hope in unlikely places. Witty, smart, and hauntingly realistic.

I have literally nothing bad to say about this book, so it’s going in at 5-stars. I can’t pinpoint why I loved it so much, but I just know that I did.

Everything Happens for a Reason, Katie Allen, RRP £8.99 (paperback); Amazon

Pages: 333

Publisher: Orenda Books

Genre: Fiction

Gifted