Who Do You Love — Francis Gilbert

'The author of several books including the bestselling memoir I'm a Teacher, Get Me Out of Here, Gilbert draws from a deeper emotional well for this painfully honest novel about mid-life crisis and young love. Flicking between the present day -- in which Nick is a recently fired journalist, reeling from the news of a former girlfriend's death --and the past (university in the 1980s, full of drugs, passion & experimental theatre), Who Do You Love is a sharp take on the complexity of the human heart.' The New Statesman.

‘I enjoyed Who Do You Love a lot. It's beautifully-written, very funny about sex and the excruciating confusion of being young and single then middle aged and trapped. I think you've captured something about a generation in a way that will touch a lot of readers.... Really, a terrific novel.” Amanda Craig, literary journalist, and author of A Vicious Circle and Hearts and Minds.

Nick is cracking up. In his mid-forties, he has just been sacked as an arts journalist, with little prospect of getting such a well-paid, prestigious job again. Even more worrying for him is his suspicion that his wife, a Deputy Head at a school, is having an affair with a much more successful person: does she want to trade in Nick for a better model?

But most devastating of all is the fact that he learns that a former lover, Ellida, has died. Unable to find a new job, Nick miserably fails, despite his best attempts, to be pro-active and positive, and retreats into memories of the past.

By turns comic, tragic and romantic, Who Do You Love is a stirring novel which explores the big issues of passion, death and grief; a fast-paced contemporary love story but also moving exploration of what it means to be alive today, which should appeal to fans of writers like David Nichols, Ann Tyler and Nick Hornby.