The Real Life Inspiration Behind A Love Like No Other
A Love Like No Other is a personal story and one close to my heart, but it is by no means autobiographical. The book follows the fictional characters of Pippa, Georgie, Sienna and Connie as they navigate the complexities and challenges of love, marriage, commitment, infertility, motherhood and society’s pressure to get married and start a family. Each woman has their own struggles and desires that are often polar opposite of what the other longs for. The shared experience of fertility treatment unites Pippa and Connie in hope and heartbreak, while Pippa’s younger sister Georgie struggles with motherhood and marriage. For Pippa’s best friend, a family and getting hitched is the last thing independent and career-minded Sienna wants.
I started writing this book in 2014 as a way to come to terms with an emotionally intense couple of years of my own going through fertility treatment. We undertook four cycles of ICSI at the Bristol Centre of Reproductive Medicine and although we were one of the lucky ones, the experience took its toll on us physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.
A lot of the book was written with my laptop perched on my knees while our much-longed for son slept in my arm, and as the ideas formed I knew the story would benefit from a balance of perspectives. Until my thirties, I was never someone who was desperate to have children. In my early twenties I remember desperately hoping I wasn’t pregnant, and yet a decade later I experienced the heartache of months then years of negative pregnancy tests when my husband and I were trying for a baby before we embarked on fertility treatment. Because of that I understood both sides and created characters who desired different things.
Much like Pippa writing The Hopeful Years blog, I found it cathartic to weave my own experiences into the book, so although the characters are fictional, the experience of IVF/ICSI is true to life and the emotions come from a real place – the uncertainty and despair, the heartache of miscarriage, the bittersweet news of friends and family announcing their pregnancies, along with the stress of holding onto hope only for it to be dashed in the cruellest way.
At its heart, A Love Like No Other is a poignant story of hope that explores the themes of motherhood, relationships, family drama and identity while shining a light on the often difficult and emotionally fraught journey of infertility a subject which isn’t talked about openly enough. In a small way, I hope A Love Like No Other can help change that.
Read Kate’s latest novel here: https://mybook.to/alovelikenoother
