Five Things I Love About You by Clare Swatman

 

After an accident while cycling to work, Miranda begins to dream about the man she almost collided with. Convinced he's the man of her dreams, despite knowing very little about him, she uproots herself and moves 300 miles in the hope of tracking him down.

I tend not to read much romantic fiction. I don't mind a romantic element in uplifting fiction, but as a genre, it's not something I gravitate towards. There was just something about the blurb for  Five Things I Love About You from Clare Swatman that caught my attention and I'm so glad it did, I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in Miranda's world.

Miranda is approaching the end of her 40s, her children have flown the nest and she's single following an amicable divorce. Life is ticking along until disaster strikes. Cycling to work she narrowly misses colliding with a man and ends up in hospital with concussion. Her recollection of the accident is hazy but when she starts having amorous dreams about the stranger she almost crashed into she's convinced that fate had a hand in the accident.

Problems with work give Miranda the opportunity to do something drastic, so she rents out her London home and moves to Newcastle for six months in the hope she'll be able to track down her mystery man. I became completely wrapped up in Miranda's life; her worry that she was making a mistake, her apprehension in moving to a city where she knew no one and her excitement at the new possibilities that opened up for her.

Early on in her relocation Miranda is befriended by a stranger, Matt, who offers to help her find her bearings in the city and with her search. Matt is a wonderful character, a lovely example of the type of open, warm and welcoming residents of the North-East. I think it was the North-East setting that really made the story for me as I recognised lots of the places mentioned in the book, along with the biting wind that seems to be ever-present along the North-East coast.

As Miranda continues her search, her friendship with Matt grows stronger and stronger. It's pretty obvious to her friends, and the reader, that Matt has feelings for Miranda. It's glaringly obvious where the story is heading but the course of true love never did run smooth so there are some complications to overcome first. The biggest complication of all is when she finds her mystery man. Is the man in her dreams the man of her dreams?

If you enjoy romantic fiction, love books and like dogs then this is the perfect read. I had a massive grin on my face when I read the final page.

Five Things I Love About You by Clare Swatman will be published on 24th April 2025 in paperback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for a review copy.

Author Details

Clare Swatman is the author of nine women's fiction novels. Her latest, Last Christmas, is a sliding doors love story set in New York and London in the early 2000s. Her next book, Five Things I Love About You, is out on 24 April 2025.

She also writes psychological thrillers under the name CL Swatman. Her debut thriller, No Son of Mine, was released worldwide on 21st December 2024, and her second will be released in September 2025.

Clare lives in Hertfordshire in the UK with her husband and two boys. Even the cat is male, which means she's destined to be outnumbered forever.