ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Posted on 17th March 2026 By Nicola

Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is published by Picador and is available now. My thanks to the publishers/Book Break for the proof copy.

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?

Almost Life is a heartbreaking love story which spans countries and decades. Erica is a student visiting Paris in the summer of 1978 before starting university when she meets Laure and strikes up a conversation with her. Laure is prickly and worldly, only a few years older than Erica but with so much more experience of life. Erica is quite gauche but soon learns how to fit in with Laure’s bohemian life. Laure is a lesbian and Erica, finding herself attracted to Laure, enters into a relationship of sorts with her.

The strands of this relationship are what keep the two women linked throughout the next 30+ years. In many ways each of them are intent on self-destruction and the question I kept coming back to when I was reading Almost Life was: are they actually any good for each other? Yet, there is an enduring love between them which, whilst not unwavering, is unbreakable.

This is quite a sad story really, filled with longing and regrets. At the beginning I struggled to like Laure but that changed a lot throughout the course of the book and by the end I thought she was an amazing woman. Erica, in feeling the need to conform more than to risk hurting Laure, came across as thoughtless at times but I think some of her behaviour was understandable, especially when you consider the era and her conventional background.

I love an epic love story and Almost Life fits that description. The author captured the yearning and the will they/won’t they vibe very well. I didn’t always find it easy to gel with and I enjoyed some sections more than others, but on the whole I found it a compelling story that kept me picking it up to see how the two women’s intertwined narratives would end.

Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a multi-award-winning, internationally bestselling novelist. She is the author of instant Sunday Times bestseller The Mercies, which was a Richard and Judy Book Club Pick, won a Betty Trask Award, and was named an NYT Best Book of the Year, and The Dance Tree, which was shortlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award, and picked for the BBC Two Between the Covers Book Club. Her bestselling works for children are published in over thirty languages. Kiran lives in Oxford with her family, and a constant rotation of foster kittens.