Book Review: The Last Piece of My Heart by Paige Toon
Meet Bridget, a successful travel journalist with ambitions to turn her quirky relationship blog into a novel. But, after numerous rejections from publishers, she accepts an alternative proposition: Nicole Dupre died leaving behind a bestselling novel and an incomplete sequel, and the family need someone to finish it. Bridget is just thankful to have her foot in the publishing door. But as she gets to know Nicole’s grieving family, and the woman behind the writing, Bridget’s priorities begin to change …
★★★★☆
The Last Piece of My Heart follows Bridget, a travel journalist who is working to turn her blog about her past loves into a published book and is offered an alternate job to finish the sequel for an author who died before she could finish it herself. Bridget moves to Padstow, Cornwall, UK, to get to work and immerse herself in Nicki’s old life.
Bridget was smart, determined, adventurous, and very self-aware. I really enjoyed the premise that she’s collecting back pieces of her heart to move forward. Charlie, a single dad and widower, had a wonderful sense of humour and, in my mind, was very (very) attractive. They had instant chemistry— but they took the time to be friends.
This is a forbidden love, do they don’t they, trope with lots of various elements that get in their way. Tensions were high, and there was an emotional depth to the story and both main characters that really drew me in.
This story had themes of grief, love, friendship, hope, and self-realization.
Overall, I really enjoyed Paige Toon’s writing style. She can convey deep emotional character arcs while being light, funny and producing a story that is easy to read. The story composition is quite strong, even though there were moments I thought could be cut, but in the end, I realized that every moment led the main character to the exact place she was meant to end up. I really loved this book. I recommend Paige Toon as an author and can’t wait to read more of her stories!
I also am going to need to go to the UK quick to get myself some Cream Tea!