Hardcover: 254 Pages

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (June 1, 2019)

For readers of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, debut author Suzy Krause delivers a quirky, colorful story about love, loss, second chances, and what it means to truly live.

Valencia, a timid debt collector with crippling OCD, is afraid of many things, but the two that scare her most are flying and turning thirty-five. To confront those fears, Valencia’s therapist suggests that she fly somewhere—anywhere—before her upcoming birthday. And as Valencia begins a telephone romance with a man from New York, she suddenly has a destination in mind. There’s only one problem—he might not actually exist.

Mrs. Valentine is an eccentric old woman desperate for company, be it from neighbors, telemarketers, or even the funeral director (when you’re her age, you go to a lot of funerals). So she’s thrilled when the new cleaning girl provides a listening ear for her life’s story—a tale of storybook love and incredible adventures around the world with her husband before his mysterious and sudden disappearance.

The stories of Valencia and Mrs. Valentine may at first appear to have nothing in common…but then again, nothing in life is as straightforward as it seems.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

She’s not dying, technically, but she’s old enough that if she keeps living, it’ll start surprising people. She’s eighty-seven years old—but she’s a young eighty-seven. She’s more like an eighty-six.

 

Everyone has ulterior motives. When an evil person has ulterior motives, it’s called scheming. When a good person has ulterior motives, it’s called planning. Mrs. Valentine is planning.

 

When I was your age, Anna, I always said I’d do everything later. I can’t tell you what an odd day that was, when I woke up and realized it was later. And now I’m living in the part that comes after. There’s a part after later, where almost everyone else is dead and you’re just killing time, and it’s … odd.

 

This was a drastic leap in logic, but Valencia was very good at this kind of leaping; it was her only claim to athleticism.

 

That’s how it is when you’re in your thirties; birthdays aren’t important anymore because everyone has gotten over the initial excitement of your basic existence. You’re old news.

 

Time had never done anything but crawl for Valencia; it had never even walked before (she had, at points, wondered if it had lain down and died). This new speed was exhilarating.

 

“It’s kind of a dumb hobby, but you need a good, dumb, eccentric hobby, I think. I heard somewhere that eccentric people live longer.” “Okay,” said Valencia, picturing her own life stretching on and on ahead of her, even more vast and endless than she had previously supposed. I’m so eccentric I might be immortal, she thought miserably.

My Review:

 

It took me several chapters to settle into this tale, as it was oddly paced and at times a bit tedious when minutely detailing Valencia’s irrational, delusional and catastrophic fears and beliefs as she spiraled into panic attacks which involved worse case scenarios and epic disasters. However, that was merely setting the stage for the cleverness and well-crafted storylines to come. Ms. Krause’s writing was often bitingly witty and profoundly insightful with frequent lashings of brilliance. I had four solid pages of highlights and favorite quotes and it was rather painful to pare them down. But what staggered and astounded me was the realization that this wryly written and cleverly conjured book was the author’s debut. Impressive!

Suzy Krause is a Canadian writer and music lover. Like Valencia, she has worked as a debt collector, and like Mrs. Valentine, she likes to tell stories. She writes about her life at www.suzykrause.com. Valencia and Valentine is her first novel.

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