If I Let You Go: The Heartbreaking, Shocking Richard and Judy Book Club Pick

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Mia and Robbie were vacuous and the fast and furious dynamics between the couples seemed inauthentic given the circumstances of how they all met. As for the ending, it couldn’t have been more perfect; quietly teasing before finishing on the gentlest, most satisfying of flourishes. I constantly felt sorry for the character of Janet, trapped in a downtrodden life, bearing guilt for something that was not her fault.

She lives with her husband Colin who blames her solely for their daughters death and is incredibly emotionally abusive and controlling (big trigger warning for this topic! I really enjoyed this one and ended up reading it in one sitting as I just couldn’t put it down, the plot really kept me hooked throughout. With each of her books, I read with an overwhelming feeling of dread and discomfort and this is exactly how I like to feel when reading psychological thrillers.As news spreads of Janet’s actions, her story inspires everyone around her, and for the first time her life has purpose and the future is filled with hope. The story embraces some difficult topics — loss, grief, guilt, blame — but Levin handles them with the utmost sensitivity.

There is real redemption, real light at the end of a beautifully written novel that is a joy to read, tender, moving, and at times slyly funny. After a night out drinking with her friends she wakes up the next day in hospital having survived a horrific train crash and saved the life of a little girl but with no memory of the event.

Janet Brown is a slightly dumpy 50-something-year-old, who enjoys her work as a cleaner but is in the grip of a coercive, controlling husband. However, the guilt she still carries about a devastating loss that happened eleven years ago, cannot be erased so easily. She sees all this as deserved punishment for her part eleven years ago in a tragic accident which killed her only child, Claire. A Richard and Judy Book Club pick, If I Let You Go is a darkly comic tale of searing loss, coercive control and the consequences of taking the wrong path. Janet becomes involved in a train crash, and it appears she’s saved the life of Elizabeth, another little girl.

Next thing we know, Janet seems to be involved in a train accident, and when she wakes up in hospital nobody knows where she was going or why she was on the train, including Janet. It is completely believable in its description of Janet’s story, her crippling guilt, her constant grief for her dead daughter Claire, and her coercive husband, a taxi driver, who uses Janet’s guilt to control her. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I really enjoyed this novel, the second I've read from Charlotte Levin, who seems to have a real knack for writing flawed protagonists so that we are both horrified by their actions and rooting for them to come good. I really enjoyed Charlotte Levin’s first novel If I Can’t Have You so I was really looking forward to reading this.

When a message from beyond the grave tell’s Janet to be brave, will she come clean and will she finally be able to move on with her life? The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. When Janet finds herself involved in a train crash she makes a decision to be a hero and soon inspires everyone around her. I found myself rooting for Janet all the way through and think this would make an excellent TV/film adaptation. With sharp characterisation and warmth on every page, and a heroine you’ll be rooting for from the word go.

This is the story of Janet Brown, a woman weighed down by guilt and grief, whose small world revolves around her cleaning job, her elderly father in his care home, and controlling husband Colin. I also enjoyed Charlotte Levins “ If I Can’t Have You” which was also darkly original and can only say I think this is even better. Utterly gripping, almost unbearably poignant yet warm, wise and full of hope - a story I'll remember for a long time. Any reservations I might have had however were blown away within the first few pages and the book held my rapt attention right the way through to its beautifully crafted ending.

She’s in a big hole with nothing to dig herself out with and then there’s the building dread of Colin. Thank you to Chloe at Pan Macmillan for the invitation to take part, and to Bookbreak for the gifted copy of the book. If I Let You Go by Charlotte Levin is a deeply moving and compelling portrayal of a woman coming to terms with loss.