Leigh Kramer

I have followed Leigh’s blog for several years and I really enjoy it, so I was excited to preorder the ebook of her first novel.

A Storied Life follows Olivia, an art gallery owner, as she deals with her beloved Gram’s Stage 4 cancer diagnosis and her new status as Gram’s Power of Attorney for Health Care. The same day she learns of the diagnosis, she meets a new gallery client, Reagan, and the two begin to fall for each other. The book covers a long span of time from Gram’s cancer announcement to her death to several months after. We see Gram’s illness progress and Olivia and Reagan’s relationship develop. Olivia also has a difficult relationship with her family apart from Gram, and we see how the cancer changes those relationships.

While I enjoyed the book, there were several elements that did make it hard for me to fully engage in the story. I felt like the timeline was not clearly delineated—at the start of the book Gram states she has only 6 months or less to live so presumably the action would take place over that period. But the book never made me felt like 6 months actually passed. There would be these huge jumps in time, but they were dismissed in one sentence. Olivia and Reagan’s relationship felt very new, even at the end of the book when they had supposedly been together for months.

I also felt like there was a lot of talking in this book, especially about Gram’s health issues and hospice care. Leigh used to be a hospice social worker and she clearly knows her stuff, but it did get tedious at places.

My last issue is that Olivia of course had to deal with her grief, but that was it. There were no money problems, no worries about losing her job, no other issues besides the grief. It seemed very unrealistic, though the depiction of hospice was obviously very realistic.

I also felt that unnecessary drama was thrown in and then said drama was resolved very quickly (accompanied by another time jump).

I enjoyed the book and I appreciated Leigh’s accurate depiction of hospice. This was a new type of romance novel—one that showed the main character had a complex life outside of her romance. This would also be a good book for anyone who wanting to understand more about hospice care in a more engaging way.… (más)