It is lovely to welcome back to Laura Pearson and the blog tour for her latest novel, I Wanted You to Know.

Dear Edie, I wanted you to know so many things. I wanted to tell you them in person, as you grew. But it wasn’t to be.

Jess never imagined she’d be navigating single motherhood, let alone while facing breast cancer. A life that should be just beginning is interrupted by worried looks, heavy conversations, and the possibility of leaving her daughter to grow up without her.

Propelled by a ticking clock, Jess knows what she has to do: tell her daughter everything. How to love, how to lose, how to forgive, and, most importantly, how to live when you never know how long you have.

From best-selling author Laura Pearson comes her most devastating book yet. Honest, heart-wrenching, and emotionally raw, I Wanted You To Know is a love letter to life: to all its heartache and beauty, to the people we have and lose, to the memories and moments that define us.

I Wanted You To Know is Laura Pearson’s third novel.

*****

Jess isn’t like other girls her age. Instead of being at university, spending time with her friends and enjoying her youth, she’s facing the fact that her baby daughter will probably grow up without her.

Jess has terminal breast cancer. As she tries to come to terms with her fate, she writes a series of letters to her daughter – to try and be there even when she can’t be. She wants to tell Edie everything and she doesn’t have long to do so.

Oh Laura, you did it to me again. You made me cry. I knew this would happen the moment I started reading and that was just the authors note. I like the fact that it’s a mixture of letters and prose; the style makes it easy to know what’s going on in Jess’s head. I got so invested in this story and have a massive book hangover.

I couldn’t help but feel such empathy and love toward Jess as a character. She felt so real to me.

To be honest, I don’t think there was a completely unlikable character in the whole novel. Everyone has their layers, complexities and flaws. It’s all explored so well.

Aside from what I’ve said already and as normal, I am not saying anything else about what happens to Jess and her loved ones. That is something I suggest you find out for yourself.

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