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I Couldn't Love You More

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I Couldn't Love You More

By: Esther Freud
Narrated by: Niamh Cusack
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Bloomsbury presents I Couldn't Love You More by Esther Freud, read by Niamh Cusack.

An unforgettable novel of mothers and daughters, wives and muses, secrets and outright lies

‘Freud is a modern literary rarity: a born storyteller’ THE TIMES

'Such a powerful book' RICHARD CURTIS
'Delivers an emotional punch that left me in tears' RACHEL JOYCE
'Utterly compelling' HANNAH ROTHSCHILD
'I couldn't love it more' POLLY SAMSON
'I loved this book' AMANDA CRAIG
'Completely, inspiringly wonderful' BARBARA TRAPIDO
'Breathtakingly beautiful' JULIET NICOLSON

AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF 2021

Rosaleen is still a teenager, in the early Sixties, when she meets the famous sculptor Felix Lichtman. Felix is dangerous, bohemian, everything she dreamed of in the cold nights at her Catholic boarding school. And at first their life together is glitteringly romantic – drinking in Soho, journeying to Marseilles. But it’s not long before Rosaleen finds herself fearfully, unexpectedly alone. Desperate, she seeks help from the only source she knows, the local priest, and is directed across the sea to Ireland on a journey that will seal her fate.

Kate lives in Nineties London, stumbling through her unhappy marriage. But something has begun to stir in her. Close to breaking point, she sets off on a journey of her own, not knowing what she hopes to find.

Aoife sits at her husband’s bedside as he lies dying, and tells him the story of their marriage. But there is a crucial part of the story missing and time is running out. Aoife needs to know: what became of Rosaleen?

Spanning three generations of women, I Couldn’t Love You More is an unforgettable novel about love, motherhood, secrets and betrayal – and how only the truth can set us free.©2021 Esther Freud (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction Marriage Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Feel-Good
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Critic reviews

Freud’s book unpicks the promise of liberation - who enjoys it, who pays the price ...The sharp intimacy of the writing is ... full of compassion and a profound decency
I devoured it in two sittings, hungrily and impatient for more ... A loving tale of mother motherhood through the ages while taking in how badly women have been treated simply for being women. You will weep with happiness and sadness (EMMA BARNETT)
Hits that tricky sweet spot between commercial and literary fiction … Freud’s darting, impressionistic prose is full of riches
Heart-breaking … Shrewd yet tender, stirring as well as harrowing, it’s a tragic saga that nonetheless keeps the door ajar for redemption
A tender portrait of three women carrying trauma, pain and the emotional weight of their respective relationships … Freud’s prose is bridled and poignant … Devastating
I Couldn't Love You More is completely, inspiringly wonderful. I read it non-stop through the night, finding myself simultaneously uplifted and wrung out by the emotional power of the story and by its ambitious social and historical range. It couldn't be better (BARBARA TRAPIDO)
This is such a powerful book - it unravels a deep tragedy in three miraculously entwined stories, in three different times, mothers and daughters linked by sorrow and love. It’s a gently told story of harsh, harsh events - a mystery story of separation and sorrow that is finally resolved with truth and warmth, but with no punches pulled. It’s a book about shame and the evil men do, but also about strength and the possibility of salvation in the face of one of the great scandals of the last century (RICHARD CURTIS)
This exquisite family saga reads as a love letter between four generations of women. Everything is here; family ghosts, the bond between mothers and daughters, cruelty, endurance, the difficulty of love, and a faith in the possibility of healing - even after years of separation. This tender, elegant book delivers an emotional punch that left me in tears (RACHEL JOYCE)
A new Esther Freud novel is always such a treat and I couldn’t love this one more (POLLY SAMSON)
Beautiful, moving, wonderful ... Let me be the first (but not the last) to say I couldn’t love it more (SAM BAKER)
A memorable read with some lessons to be learned
A beautiful and quietly powerful novel of cruelty, humanity and love
In this fascinating novel, Freud interweaves the stories of a daughter, mother and grandmother to show how past hurts and dreams drip down through generations. The women's characters and circumstances are beautifully evoked as are their struggles not to be defined by men or convention. Freud knits their plights together to create an utterly readable and compelling narrative (HANNAH ROTHSCHILD)
Freud is a consummate novelist. Her research is always thorough (in this one intensely imagined and vividly observed), her characters alive … her story page-turning, complex and emotionally satisfying
All stars
Most relevant
I loved this tender and frequently heart-rending story of multi-faceted love in three generations of related women whose experiences alternate through the book beautifully read by Niamh Cusack.
The oldest woman is Aoife (Irish pronounced eefa) who fell in love with her husband Cash during the war and now sits by his sick bed in old age after a bullying, unhappy marriage, still hoping one day to know what happened to her lost child. Next is Rosaleen, 18 in the early 1960s, sweet and impressionable, who falls heavily and completely for Felix, an East European sculptor more than twice her age, who spoke the words of the title to her 'I couldn't love you more'. But, abandoned, it ends for Rosaleen in despair and agony with the Irish Sisters of "Mercy". The third generation is Kate in the 1990s living with her adored, demanding daughter Freya and her destructively alcoholic failed musician husband Matt. Struggling to find herself, she starts to investigate her unknown mother who had once given her up for adoption in the early 60s.

There's so much to enjoy in this book and the narration definitely adds delicacy and deepens the heart of it. Esther Freud's writing is poetic and lyrical, not in a fey way, but in tenderly - in a way the episodes in the novel are rather like movements in a piece of music.
The different experiences of love are explored with startling empathy as in Rosaleen's passion for much older Felix and for her newborn baby, or in the complex maternal love of Kate for her child and mixed love and loathing for her alcoholic husband. The sections with the Sisters of Mercy are almost too harrowing to bear: the pregnant girls being harshly punished for their sins and having their babies sold to couples who arrive in cars to collect the new baby they have paid for, the bottle of expressed mother's milk tucked inside its shawl.
The three women are delicately woven together, their stories intertwining. The ending (I won't spoil it) is beautifully crafted and both uplifting and realistic.

Beautifully written and tender

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Taken as a whole, this is a tremendous story of the consequences of small and large events on the women of a family. It’s very authentic and is beautifully read, as one might expect.
I am less enthusiastic about the style which, whilst often quite poetic, leaves a lot to the reader in piecing the story back together and making some leaps of faith regarding detail. On the whole I did enjoy the book very much and some sections of it will stay with me for a long time.
I would read other Esther Freud books.

Family love and loss

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I struggled with this book. Maybe if I'd read it rather than listened it might have been easier. very Irish accents, some a bit grating. Story jumped around way too much.

confusing

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I really loved this book, definitely a new favourite. It will break your heart and put it back together again. All these women are written very well and individually. They are all searching for each other with time and knowledge fighting against them.

Truly gorgeous

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Read beautifully. The sadness and hope of each of the women was palpable. Moving, emotional. A story that no doubt rings true for many women who reluctantly gave up their babies.

A moving story

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