Love After All by Eward Arenz

Thank you @Orenda Books, for giving me a copy of this unique and thought-provoking novel in return for an honest review.

Love After All is a slow burner. The early chapters introduce actor Elias and unemployed photographer Clara. Widowed Clara is selling her picturesque cottage, and Elias and his girlfriend Vera travel to view it. The relationship between the younger pair is one-sided. Elias is much less committed to Vera than she is to him. When Clara fails to answer her door Elias climbs over the fence, picking up a splinter on the way.

Although Clara is several years older than thirty-something Elias, their mutual attraction is immediate and electric. Evocative descriptions of springtime underpin the story of their blossoming love affair. They express their feelings through light banter, which I thought was rather stilted. Something may have been lost in translation, but the sincerity of the couple’s devotion to each other is clear.

Elias breaks it off with Vera, who temporarily fades into the background. Clara introduces Elias to her family. Elias takes Clara to meet his teenage daughter. Just when the reader is beginning to think they have picked up a conventional romance, dark elements are introduced. Clara, whose mother suffers from dementia, becomes acutely conscious of the age difference between herself and her younger lover. When she is offered employment in a distant city, she breaks off the affair. It is only when Elias becomes seriously ill that he and Clara are reunited.

The fact that Clara’s brother is a medical doctor introduces an ice-cold streak of reality into the events which follow Elias’ troubling diagnosis. Ewald Arenz writes perceptively about life’s uncertainties and the importance of love in easing them. He also illustrates how the boundaries between youth and age can be blurred by health issues. Fans of mature romance will enjoy this book.