Blurb

Tiffy and Leon share an apartment. Tiffy and Leon have never met.

After a bad breakup, Tiffy Moore needs a place to live. Fast. And cheap. But the apartments in her budget have her wondering if astonishingly colored mold on the walls counts as art.

Desperation makes her open minded, so she answers an ad for a flatshare. Leon, a night shift worker, will take the apartment during the day, and Tiffy can have it nights and weekends. He’ll only ever be there when she’s at the office. In fact, they’ll never even have to meet.

Tiffy and Leon start writing each other notes – first about what day is garbage day, and politely establishing what leftovers are up for grabs, and the evergreen question of whether the toilet seat should stay up or down. Even though they are opposites, they soon become friends. And then maybe more.

But falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea…especially if you’ve never met.

What if your roommate is your soul mate? A joyful, quirky romantic comedy, Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare is a feel-good novel about finding love in the most unexpected of ways.

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Book Review

To start I must really commend Beth O’Leary because The Flatshare is one heck of a debut. It was tremendously well written, Beth’s style of writing was a bit unorthodox (I don’t know about other people but I’m speaking for me), it worked extremely well, the flow and connection, everything was marvellous.

I find this piece of literature to be wonderfully eccentric and very original, never have I ever read a story with the distinctive elements that give this book it’s own ground and sets it apart from the other books in this category. For example, I mean look out how our main characters meet. It never occurred to me, to think situations like this exist, but obviously, it just has to cause people are really crazy. Tiffy needs a place to stay but doesn’t have enough cash to afford a good place. Comes in Leon, he is in need of extra cash, and he has a one bedroom flat he’s almost always never in, so why can’t he rent it out, share his flat with someone else, this person will sleep in his bed, and share everything else in the flat.

Tiffy Moore is a character anyone would love. I love her so much, I wish I had a best friend such as she. For one I love Tiffy’s job and we have many similarities, I work in publishing, also underpaid and somehow I’ve been made a junior/assistant editor, which also has me gushing about the edit job this book has gotten, it’s amazing! I’m a beginner editor, but I spotted a lot of things I recently learnt in an editorial workshop, so big kudos to the editors of this work also, you guys are amazing! Anyways because of this, I was able to understand the inner workings of a publishing firm, and how important Tiffy’s job is.

Tiffy has the best set of friends, there are Gerty and Mo, Rachel and the author who Tiffy manages Katherine, who is a bit too much, but everything comes from a place of love, even though misguided. I loved the friendship dynamic, the way it was showcased, really hit home on the fact that your real friends, will always have your back and not deal with your crap.

Tiffy is in a bad place, in this book and I loved how her friends helped her deal, they didn’t coddle her, because they wanted her to get better and also face reality. Which was also marvellously shown in this book, the trajectory of her healing and facing things head on. Tiffy is a confident woman, who is vibrant and pure. I loved how she embraced herself and her body like she has motivated me also. She’s on the big side, and I’m guessing she’s about UK size 12-14 or even more? I’m a small 12, and I get body shamed all the time about how I look and many time than not it gets to me, yet even though Tiffy gets body shamed, she still loves her body and is confident in her skin and who she is. I want to be like Tiffy all the time.

I felt heartbroken as the story progressed and I watched Tiffy break apart because of a terrible relationship, that had done more harm than good, also how easy it was to revert back to old habits, when they were never good for you in the first place, but because you’re the victim, you’re blind to it. I loved how the abuse in this story was dealt with, and I’m glad it made Tiffy stronger in the end.

Now let me talk about Leon. Wow, I am in love with Leon Towney. He is the sweetest guy, I just love love love. He’s more than a book boyfriend, he’s my book husband. He’s a nurse, who works in the terminally ill side of the hospital, I totally forgot the name, and he’s very closed off because he is very picky about the people he let into his life. But really he is a very sweet, caring and wonderful guy, that any girl would be crazy to let slip away, but in this case, I’m happy because he and Tiffy got together, if there’s anyone who should have him, it’s Tiffy.

Leon is quiet and very collected, but there is this silent confidence and sexy power to him, it’s just amazing to read, he also has an amazing relationship with the people he let into his life, and the love between him and his brother is just amazing. I loved it so much, God I so would love a Rachel and Richie story!

Leon handles a lot and it’s amazing how he doesn’t crack under the pressure, yes he has he moments of being down, but he always powers himself back up, being that shoulder for everyone, I loved how he remained a gem, all through the story.

I must also add, that the main characters and important side characters of this story understand what it means to communicate. They easily own up to their errors and it was very refreshing to read.

Tiffy and Leon are very different people, and it shows so well, in the way each of their chapters has been written, which makes the characters even more endearing to me. I loved how their story ended, it was just too perfect and sweet, and it left me feeling happy and satisfied like a warm loving hug had embraced me.

About the Author

Beth O’Leary worked in children’s publishing before becoming a full-time author. THE FLATSHARE is her debut novel. The idea for The Flatshare came to Beth when her doctor boyfriend was doing long night shifts as part of his training and they could go weeks without seeing each other, but she could track his life by how many cups of coffee were left on the counter, by how much he’d eaten and whether the bookmark in his novel had changed locations. It made her wonder – what could you learn about someone if you lived together but never overlapped?

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