My Life in Shambles

Say ‘yes’ to this emotional ride!

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1. MY LIFE IN SHAMBLES by Karina Halle

SYNOPSIS

When Valerie Stephens made the resolution to say yes to new adventures, she never thought she’d end up in the tiny town of Shambles, fake engaged to one of Ireland’s top rugby players. But there’s a first time for everything.

They say bad things happen in threes. After my boyfriend broke off our engagement, I lost my apartment and was laid off from my job, I can definitely attest to that. They also say life is what happens when you say yes to new adventures. So when my two sisters invited me to ring in the new year in Ireland, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and go for it.

I was going to let ‘saying yes’ be my new resolution. Little did I know I’d spend New Year’s Eve having a hot and dirty one-night stand with Padraig McCarthy, one hell of a sexy Irishman. I also didn’t know that the brooding and intense sex god was one of Ireland’s top rugby players. A rugby player with a proposition for me: come with him to his tiny hometown of Shambles and pretend to be his fiancé for a few days, just so that his ailing father can have some peace of mind.

It sounded simple enough. It was anything but. Not when a town gets up in your business, not when the media hunts you down, not when your past comes back in the picture, not when there are real hearts and feelings at stake. Not when there are secrets that could break you.

They say life is what happens when you say yes to new adventures. This is my life in Shambles.

BOOK REVIEW

“The heart doesn’t listen to reason. It has a mind of its own and the last thing it will do before it feels something is consult with you on whether or not to feel it. It beats without you telling it to, from inside your mother’s womb, all the way till death. It beats and beats and goes on like a tireless machine and when it chooses who it loves, you don’t have a fucking chance. The heart decides what love is, no matter what the mind says.”

The love story of Valerie and Padraig was such an emotional ride! In the beginning, it felt like one of those whimsically naive fairytalelike settings with winter magic and all other fun stuff. A beautiful girl gets crushed by life and drowns her sorrows in Irish pubs only to stumble upon an extremely gorgeous and famous rugby player, who she then spends one passionate night with and agrees to pretend to be his fiancé in front of his family because... New Year, new beginnings, new feelings, and contemporary romance duh… But the real story behind all the sparkles and wine was anything but a winter fairytale. It turned out that Padraig was plagued by a life-altering revelation, desperately trying to hold onto the scraps of what was left of his old reality. Valerie was heaven-sent, a shining beacon in his darkest hour before everything was about to fall apart into shambles.

“Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me and I’ll tell you I love you more.”

I devoured this love story. It left me exposed to a harsh reality of losing something that defines one as a person. It made me feel the hope a single stranger can give, even when the shitiest things happen all at once with no mercy and time to bounce back given. It made me realize once again that true love can help to overcome any difficulties, heal the old wounds, and finally have some closure in issues that do matter. I just couldn’t get enough of Valerie and Padraig, who were a perfect match for each other! These characters were devastatingly raw and so fucking relatable, humanly flawed and beautifully fragile…

Honestly speaking, I wasn’t ready for the events that took place in the book. I smiled widely like a total idiot and cried so much, my hubby thought I went crazy. My Life in Shambles is definitely my most favourite book by Karina Halle. It’s an absolute must-read!

“Life is brilliant. And then it’s awful. Sometimes trivial or boring or mundane. You just have to push through all that bad stuff until its brilliant again. Always hold out for brilliant.”