LOVED ONE

A woman from LA heads to London in search of her on-again, off-again lover’s possessions after his untimely death.

Julia and Gabe meet in a summer arts program in Barcelona right before they head to college, after his mother, Leora, a poet who’s teaching in the program, introduces them, and they have a summer fling. However, the book opens with Julia at Gabe’s funeral, 12 years in the future. She has a successful jewelry-design business, and he is—well, was—an indie star known as Separate Bedrooms. She also tells us that just one month before Gabe died, they slept together, long after their first fling and unbeknownst to Gabe’s recent ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth, who lives in London and manages a bespoke floral studio as well as a hip restaurant. Readers will learn all of this as Julia sets off for London, prodded by Leora to rescue the older woman’s cherished guitar. At first Julia tries to appear blasé with Elizabeth, but after a series of blunders, they decide to join forces and find the three things Leora wants: the guitar, a baseball cap, and a piece of sheet music. Julia tries not to let on what she wants to find for herself: a medical bracelet she once made for Gabe, who had “situs inversus,” meaning his internal organs were reversed. Author Muharrar seems to want to show that Julia’s feelings are reversed, but it doesn’t work in the brief window the women have, just a couple of days until Julia’s return to the U.S. There isn’t enough time for us to understand Julia’s adult self, even with flashbacks to other times her life intersected with Gabe’s. Nor is there enough space for Elizabeth to come to life beyond her chic exterior. Muharrar’s fluid writing promises interesting future work, but this book might have remained a short story.

Poignant and well written, but with a slim premise and insufficient character development.