So when he leaves for a long-booked holiday and promises to call from the airport, you have no cause to doubt him. But he doesn’t call.
Your friends tell you to forget him, but you know they’re wrong: something must have happened; there must be a reason for his silence.
What do you do when you finally discover you’re right? That there is a reason – and that reason is the one thing you didn’t share with each other?
The truth.
The Man Who Didn’t Call is a fictional romance novel that is laced with mystery and thriller. It was published by Pan in July 2019 and was released under the title “Ghosted” prior to that in 2018. Only a short read, it spans 352 pages. I’m also pretty sure Rosie Walsh has written other books under a different pen name in the past too. The novel follows the story of 2 people, who by chance meet in England and immediately fall in love. After a week spent together and falling in the love. They part ways with plans to meet back up in a week to spend even more time together. But something goes wrong as Sarah doesn’t here from him. Everyone thinks that she has been ghosted, a popular occurrence among modern dating, but she cannot and will not accept this. She knows there’s something more going on here. But the question is, what?
Now I am going to start off by saying, I am not the biggest romance fan. I hate soppy books, and tales of love at first glance. But I did find myself liking this book. More because it wasn’t the usual soppy stereotypes that I have found myself reading in the few romance books that I have read over the years. It wasn’t full of unrealistic feelings and events that just don’t happy in relationships. For that the book instantly gets some brownie points from me. For not being so sickly sweet that I cannot patiently carry on reading. I found the plot to be engaging, twisty and mostly plausible. And the parts that were a little far-fetched were well written to make sure they weren’t overly cheesy and still had the feel of “this could happen” to them.
The characters were lovely. I felt Sarah to be a great character that has learnt from a lot of her hardships and negative experiences to become someone she likes. A strong and confident woman. I liked to hear the growth she has had as a person from what was a tumultuous teenage experience. Also Eddie, the male love interest was a great character too. He was written to be this stand up perfect man, but we do get to see some doubt and bad decisions from him. Which make him seem so much more real and human. I like that Rosie gave her characters real human flaws. They weren’t just your “stereotypical perfect couple” where neither can do no wrong. They both make mistakes throughout the book, they both make bad decisions and learn from them, they have doubts and secrets. They actually grow as people. And we all know we love a book with good character development because without that realness and growth – what’s going to draw you into a book and make you get lost in it? Absolutely nothing.
There were many moments in this book where we encounter some massive and shocking plot twists, that frankly have you sitting with your mouth wide open, catching flies for a second. I wasn’t expecting a lot of the things that happened towards the end, and it really kept me engaged, I wanted to know more. Rosie Walsh definitely knows how to keep her readers in suspense.
Overall, I loved the book. It genuinely surprised me, as romance really isn’t my genre. I’m not soppy enough for it. I am a bit cynical. But this book is such a great read and has a lot of realistic aspects to it which I really respect. I think she did a great job at demonstrating a realistic relationship one with problems and flaws both in the people and the relationship itself. I would definitely recommend it.
So when he leaves for a long-booked holiday and promises to call from the airport, you have no cause to doubt him. But he doesn’t call.
Your friends tell you to forget him, but you know they’re wrong: something must have happened; there must be a reason for his silence.
What do you do when you finally discover you’re right? That there is a reason – and that reason is the one thing you didn’t share with each other?
The truth.
The Man Who Didn’t Call is a fictional romance novel that is laced with mystery and thriller. It was published by Pan in July 2019 and was released under the title “Ghosted” prior to that in 2018. Only a short read, it spans 352 pages. I’m also pretty sure Rosie Walsh has written other books under a different pen name in the past too. The novel follows the story of 2 people, who by chance meet in England and immediately fall in love. After a week spent together and falling in the love. They part ways with plans to meet back up in a week to spend even more time together. But something goes wrong as Sarah doesn’t here from him. Everyone thinks that she has been ghosted, a popular occurrence among modern dating, but she cannot and will not accept this. She knows there’s something more going on here. But the question is, what?
Now I am going to start off by saying, I am not the biggest romance fan. I hate soppy books, and tales of love at first glance. But I did find myself liking this book. More because it wasn’t the usual soppy stereotypes that I have found myself reading in the few romance books that I have read over the years. It wasn’t full of unrealistic feelings and events that just don’t happy in relationships. For that the book instantly gets some brownie points from me. For not being so sickly sweet that I cannot patiently carry on reading. I found the plot to be engaging, twisty and mostly plausible. And the parts that were a little far-fetched were well written to make sure they weren’t overly cheesy and still had the feel of “this could happen” to them.
The characters were lovely. I felt Sarah to be a great character that has learnt from a lot of her hardships and negative experiences to become someone she likes. A strong and confident woman. I liked to hear the growth she has had as a person from what was a tumultuous teenage experience. Also Eddie, the male love interest was a great character too. He was written to be this stand up perfect man, but we do get to see some doubt and bad decisions from him. Which make him seem so much more real and human. I like that Rosie gave her characters real human flaws. They weren’t just your “stereotypical perfect couple” where neither can do no wrong. They both make mistakes throughout the book, they both make bad decisions and learn from them, they have doubts and secrets. They actually grow as people. And we all know we love a book with good character development because without that realness and growth – what’s going to draw you into a book and make you get lost in it? Absolutely nothing.
There were many moments in this book where we encounter some massive and shocking plot twists, that frankly have you sitting with your mouth wide open, catching flies for a second. I wasn’t expecting a lot of the things that happened towards the end, and it really kept me engaged, I wanted to know more. Rosie Walsh definitely knows how to keep her readers in suspense.
Overall, I loved the book. It genuinely surprised me, as romance really isn’t my genre. I’m not soppy enough for it. I am a bit cynical. But this book is such a great read and has a lot of realistic aspects to it which I really respect. I think she did a great job at demonstrating a realistic relationship one with problems and flaws both in the people and the relationship itself. I would definitely recommend it.