I love a sweeping love story and I love coming of age books and Talking at Night is both of these things so it's entirely unsurprising that it's become a favourite of recent years. It's the story of Rosie and Will, and it starts when they're doing their A levels - Rosie conscientious and with her life carefully planned out, Will intelligent but unfocused.

Their lives converge when Will offers to help Rosie's twin brother Josh study for his Further Maths A level. It's clear from the outset that there's something between them, but being with a boy like Will isn't part of Rosie's plan. And then tragedy hits. Something that will bind Rosie and Will together for the rest of their lives, while also keeping them from being together.

From here, we follow Rosie and Will for several decades. There are periods in which they are close, and periods in which they don't speak. Through it all, I ached for these two characters, who are so different but so clearly meant to be, to find their way back to one another.

I love the way this novel comments on different types of family. Rosie has a very typical family - parents and a brother - but the relationships are strained and distant. Will lives with his grandmother and his sister, and despite the trauma he holds from being abandoned by his mother, there is a lot of love in his life.

The author also takes a close look at the elements that make up a life and their relative importance. Love, family, career. When Will and Rosie are young, she knows what she wants from life and he doesn't seem to, but the way their lives pan out is unexpected, with the book's central tragedy knocking them both off course and changing their priorities. Through the decades, Will and Rosie try out different ways of living as they come to terms with the turn things have taken for them both. There's no judgement, just interesting observations about ways of being.

I've read this one twice in the past couple of years - once the physical book and once the audio version, and I'd highly recommend both. The audio narrator captures the poetic prose beautifully.

Laura Pearson