Review: From Now Until Forever: The dazzling new love story from the million-copy bestselling author of The Summer of Impossible Things

From Now Until Forever: The dazzling new love story from the million-copy bestselling author of The Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ben Church has lived with Marfan syndrome since he was diagnosed at sixteen years old, but has just received the devastating news that a new aneurysm has formed next to the brain stem. An operation is not an option and the aneurysm could rupture at any time in the next few months, weeks, or even days. Shocked to discover that he might only have a few days left to live, he leaves Yorkshire and travels to London, determined to live life to the full. He is an optical engineer and has designed a revolutionary high spectrum lens which can separate out image layers of a subject and separate individual elements on a molecular level.

Vita Ambrose is an art curator for the Bianchi Collection, she has been working for years to bring together a collection of Leonardo Da Vinci's portraits and all her hard work has paid off, finally the Louvre has agreed to lend the exhibition La Belle Ferronnière, Da Vinci's portrait of an unknown woman. Vita believes that the portrait contains one of Da Vinci's greatest secrets and she is determined to uncover it.

Ben and Vita meet by chance when Vita saves a small child from being run over by a bus and Ben pulls her to safety, he catches sight of the brochure in Vita's hand for the exhibition and asks her if she's been - he intended to go because La Belle Ferronnière was on the cover of one of his mother's books when he was a child and Ben used to try to copy Leonardo's drawings of his inventions.

What future can there be for a man with only days to live and a woman who is tired of living?

I found this confusing to get into. Told from alternate POVs of Vita and Ben, there is no indication of who is narrating and so I wasn't sure who was talking, especially when they went somewhere new or talked to someone new.

So ... I wasn't really feeling it and TBH I was inclined to DNF but decided to give it at least until I had read a quarter of the book before making a decision. And it suddenly got good, as in I can't tell you because its a spoiler good. I really liked where it seemed to be going and it reminded me vaguely of a cross between The Da Vinci Code and one of my favourite books of all time The Eight. Of course Vita and Ben meet up, his lens could help her decode the painting.

Then it seemed to get mired down in insta-lurve and visits to Ben's mother in Yorkshire and chats to Vita's neighbour etc rather than the Da Vinci secret which is what I was interested in. There was a lot of wafty language about rooftops and feelings.

Overall, I was left with the feeling that this was a book written in a way which didn't suit the plot, I don't think we needed to hear Ben's POV, it didn't add anything. The arty descriptive language didn't gel with the idea of deciphering the Da Vinci which (to me) feels like it should be more of a detective style prose.

Anyway, I felt it dragged in the middle then had a rushed ending.

I was given an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.


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