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The Key to My Heart: A Novel

The Key to My Heart
by Lia Louis
Pub Date – 12/6/22
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A heartwarming novel about hope after loss as a young widow receives mysterious messages of love from the “must-buy author” (Jodi Picoult) of Eight Perfect Hours.
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This was a romance after loss. A 32 year old is trying to live her life after the sudden death of her husband in an accident. She’s just moving through life but grief is a hard and relentless emotion.

Her friends are trying to help her meet someone just to get her out of her funk but she ends up talking to someone that she realizes she has a lot in common and they become friends. While they both try dating.

All the while a public piano she plays at routinely, suddenly has sheet music left in the stool of music that is familiar to her. She’s so curious as to who is leaving them.

This did have some banter humor but it’s not a rom com. It’s set in the winter but not really holiday book. I appreciated the grief aspect and the messy parts of long term relationships and dating. It’s not always bright and clean. Sometimes there’s settling and staying because it’s scary you be alone. Not everyone makes the right decisions and then don’t know how to fix it. But life is messy as hell. I say this as I’m recovering from some epic cold thing, everything feels messy everywhere right now藍略️❄️.

I love realistic stories with so many emotions and so much life that never stops even when you need a break from it.

❓ Do you play any musical instruments?

Thank you atriabooks and netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

Synopsis:

A heartwarming novel about hope after loss as a young widow receives mysterious messages of love from the “must-buy author” (Jodi Picoult) of Eight Perfect Hours.

Sparkly and charming Natalie Fincher has it all—a handsome new husband, a fixer-upper cottage of her dreams, and the opportunity to tour with the musical she’s spent years writing. But when her husband suddenly dies, all her hopes and dreams instantly disappear.

Two and a half years later, Natalie is still lost. She works, sleeps (well, as much as the sexually frustrated village foxes will allow), and sees friends just often enough to allay their worries, but her life is empty. And she can only bring herself to play music at a London train station’s public piano where she can be anonymous. She’s lost motivation, faith in love, in happiness…in everything.

But when someone begins to mysteriously leave the sheet music for her husband’s favorite songs at the station’s piano, Natalie begins to feel a sense of hope and excitement for the first time. As she investigates just who could be doing this, Natalie finds herself on an unexpected journey toward newfound love for herself, for life, and maybe, for a special someone.