Almost Life is Kiran Millwood Hargrave's breathtaking story of love and longing, of the lives we almost live and the choices we don't make — and finding the courage to embrace who you really want to be.

'The biggest weepy since One Day' - Stylist
'A heart-rending tale of missed chances' - Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
'Immersive, sensual, beautiful and powerful' - Marian Keyes, author of My Favourite Mistake
'Tender, sensual and thrumming with life' - Lucy Steeds, author of The Artist
'One of the greatest love stories I’ve ever read' - Stacey Halls, author of The Household

One chance encounter can define a lifetime

Erica and Laure meet on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur in Paris, 1978. Erica is a student, relishing her first summer abroad before beginning university at home in England. Laure is studying for her Ph.D. at the Sorbonne, drinking and smoking far too much, and sleeping with a married woman.

The moment the two women meet the spark is undeniable. But their encounter turns into far more than a summer of love. It is the beginning of a relationship that will define their lives and every decision they have yet to make. Spanning cities, decades and heartbreaks, fate brings them within touching distance again and again.

But will they be brave enough to seize the life they truly want?

'Tender and wistful, it’s a will-they-won’t-they for the ages' - GQ
‘A beautifully written exploration of desire, freedom and the roads we do and don’t take’ - The Observer
'Hot, smart and completely captivating' - Daisy Buchanan, author of Pity Party
'A beautifully told story about love, longing, and the lives we almost live' - Louise O'Neill, author of Idol

Erica and Laure have made me think about MY life, about love and friendship and how short life is . . . immersive, sensual, beautiful and powerful -- Marian Keyes, author of My Favourite Mistake
A heart-rending tale of missed chances. Millwood Hargrave is a wonderful writer and what a pleasure it is to be in the company of such a deft, enchanting storyteller -- Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain
Hot, smart and completely captivating - this is a truly luscious love story. I'll never forget it -- Daisy Buchanan, author of Insatiable
A beautifully told story about love, longing, and the lives we almost live -- Louise O'Neill, author of Idol
A rippling elegy to the possibilities and impossibilities of love. Tender, sensual and thrumming with life, Kiran Millwood Hargrave swirls heady prose into both a lament and a celebration of the choices we make, the passions that consume us, and the almost lives we almost live -- Lucy Steeds, author of The Artist
The biggest weepy since One Day . . . she knows exactly how to destroy us * Stylist Magazine *
Almost Life is captivating and immersive, a soaring ode to both love’s possibilities and its pain. Richly rendered and deeply felt, Laure and Erica will stay with me for a long time -- Sophie Mackintosh, Booker-longlisted author of The Water Cure
Love, loss, joy, cowardice, bravery, sex, friendship, love, more love, always love, Paris, London, Norfolk, and four decades of longing: a masterpiece from a writer at the height of her powers -- Ella Risbridger, author of The Year of Miracles
One of the greatest love stories I’ve ever read - searingly real, romantic and tragic, Almost Life is One Day for a new generation -- Stacey Halls, author of Mrs England
A beautifully written exploration of desire, freedom and the roads we do and don’t take -- The Observer
Beautiful and full of heart, a book about friendship and love and life itself. Filled with light and tenderness -- Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory
Devastating and heartbreaking, with the pain and joy and despair of wanting and being in love so rich on every page. A singular book from a beautiful writer about two women I will never forget -- Kate Young, author of Experienced
Rich, evocative, stylish and sexy - a gorgeously crafted novel of epic love and epic life. Almost Life is as heartbreaking as it is deeply human -- Kirsty Capes, author of Girls
Almost Life pulled me straight in . . . I was completely invested and finished the last pages in tears -- Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun
Kiran Millwood Hargrave has crafted one of the most intensely beautiful love stories I have read in a very long time. Almost Life is breathtaking in its understanding of the way we may be haunted by the living, by the paths we do not take. I wish I could read it again for the first time. It left me awestruck -- Hannah Kent, author of Devotion
Almost Life reads like a dream of young desire, but Hargrave is brilliantly awake to the heartbreaks and constraints of enduring passion. Sexy, tender, piercing, and oh so true, Almost Life is a lyrical accounting of love’s offerings and its toll. I loved every word -- Erin O. White, author of Like Family
A big love story with occasional echoes of McEwan’s Atonement and Austen’s Persuasion . . . A lush, deeply thoughtful novel * Kirkus (starred review) *
Oh, how I wept! Opposites attract in this love story, which traces the bittersweet "what if" of Erica and Laure over 35 years * The Bookseller *
Tender and wistful, it’s a will-they-won’t-they for the ages, and a sweeping portrait of Paris so vivid it will have you looking up Eurostar prices before you’re halfway through -- GQ
An epic love story to lose yourself in that is populated with characters that are so fully realised you'll fall in love with them, grieve them and carry them with you long after you close the book -- Kate Sawyer, author of This Family
I was moved, thrilled, addicted, and immersed. The writing is utterly gorgeous, the story is achingly true, the impact is devastating and beautiful -- Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton
Yearning like you've never experienced . . . Erica and Laure's story has all of the poetic pining of Normal People with the delicious settings of Sarah Winman's Still Life and the gut-punching writing of Maggie O'Farrell. Utterly adored it -- poet, vlogger and presenter Leena Norms