All We Have is Now by Kaneana May is an entertaining and moving story of three women facing the kinds of challenges and complications that many people will come across in their lives. It is generally realistic and grounded while taking an optimistic view of life, despite the vivid portrayal of grief.
Elsie, Bree and Olive have just opened Healing Hands, their dream business. Working out of a converted home, Healing Hands is a wellness centre designed to help people physically and emotionally. The three of them are good at their jobs, and the centre is soon flourishing.
However, each woman is facing a different set of problems, all of which have the potential to upend their lives.
For Bree, it’s the return of her wayward sister that disrupts her easy life of casual sex and good relationships with family and neighbours. Olive has a secret that she doesn’t want her friends to find out about, and is increasingly preoccupied with her mother’s failing health. And Elsie longs for a baby of her own while navigating life as a stepmother and her husband’s fractious ex.
Most people are likely to have experienced at least one of these problems, or something very close to it. May explores the situations with sensitivity, drawing the reader into her characters’ heads and making you care about them. You may not endorse their choices, but you’ll understand them.
May’s first novel, “The One”, took a lighter approach, but still had something serious to say. Here May has written something closer to a drama. It is not a difficult read despite the more serious approach, and I found much of it absorbing. The writing is well-paced and draws the reader along easily.
About halfway through the novel, a character experiences a significant event (I’m trying not to include spoilers: I think you’ll know when you get to it). This generated my one problem with the novel: the way she is treated in hospital and later by other people is unrealistic.
Despite this, emotions and actions throughout the novel are generally credible and described with considerable empathy, for all the characters. This is one of the strengths of this novel.
Apart from that one incident, I enjoyed this novel immensely. It is a little tough to read in places, given the emotional impact of some of what the characters go through. However, it’s well worth it. May’s approach is broadly optimistic and the novel is extremely satisfying.
A selection of our Beauty and Lace Club Members are reading All We Have Is Now by Kaneana May. You can read their comments below, or add your own review.
ISBN: 978-1-8672-0836-5
Copy courtesy of Head of Zeus
I’ve loved books for as long as I can remember, and I love sharing that joy.
I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember, across all genres. There’s not much I won’t at least try. I’ve been an enthusiastic book reviewer for years. I particularly enjoy discovering writers new to me, and sharing good writing with others.
My career has included time spent writing and editing technical documents, but it’s fiction that really moves me. I’ve reviewed for a number of different outlets over the years, and have been a judge in literary competitions.
I’m now raising little bookworms of my own, which brings a whole new kind of joy to sharing books.
More of my reviews can be found on my review blog www.otherdreamsotherlives.home.blog .
Thankyou to Beauty and Lace and Harlequin Enterprises for the opportunity to read All we have is now by Kaneana May.
This book was a delight to read. It is about friendship and life. Love and loss and finding ways to move forward.
Olive, Elsie and Bree are wonderful characters.
The three friends go into business together, running a successful Wellness Centre called Healing Hands.
Each friend has a different personality and strength.
Olive, a dietician, has a secret from her past that she hasn’t shared with her friends.
Elsie , a counsellor ,tragedy strikes her and her partners life.
Bree, a Pilates Instructor, is a little on the reckless side !
As we journey through their present times , we also read the back stories of their pasts.
It is one of those emotional reads where you laugh and cry with the characters.
5 stars
Thank you to Harlequin Enterprises and Beauty and Lace and for my copy.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the author doesn’t waste any time getting into the story. Basically I was hooked before finishing the prologue. I really liked the three main characters and their fantastic Wellness Centre set up in a federation house. Each chapter length is not too long or short and has a title dedicated to one of the main characters. I had no trouble keeping track of all the characters and their families, careers and love interests. The authors describes a lot of things accurately like grief, loss, family dynamics and squabbles and also dementia. The main focus of the story is the three main characters and their friendships and how their support each other through life’s hardships and joys. Bit by bit tragedies and bits of the past surface and in places the story is quite heartbreaking. My only little gripe is the ending seemed a bit rushed and I would have liked it better to be spread out over a few more chapters. Overall, a really lovely and enjoyable read.
I was hooked from chapter 1.
Love loss and forgiveness. This book goes through the highs and lows of life even the gory bits.
Very easy to read thankyou beauty and lace.
Thank you @beautyandlacemag and @harpercollinsaustralia for supplying this month’s book, All we have is now, by Kaneana May @kaneanamaywriter
The second publication by Ms May is very easy to read. Just like her first novel, The One, the characters are most endearing and very relatable – I love that. I finished this book in record time as it was a “page turner” and I read it long into many a late night.
It is a very real story about friendships, families, exes, blended families, new babies, and lost love. There are three main female characters and I like the way Ms May allocates and focusses a whole chapter to one character’s storyline, rotating through the three very different lives. The topics addressed are very real and expressed with honesty and respect.
She courageously explores death, dementia, lost love, heartbreak, and family breakdowns.
I recommend this book to a wide audience.
I absolutely loved this book. The characters were all flawed and relatable, and it explored the issues of love, marriage, pregnancy, dementia, loss and family and friendships! So much going on, but so well written and easy to read. I cried and laughed with each of the characters and couldn’t put the book down.
I will definitely be reading the author’s first book now and am looking forward to her next book.
Thank you Beauty and Lace for the opportunity to read All we have is now by Kaneana May.
This is a story of 3 friends. The characters were relatable and loveable.
At times you are laughing and at others you may shed a tear.
I loved how the three characters were different and how there lives wound together
I loved their friendships. Their issues were real and at times heartbreaking.
I loved this book so much that I went out and bought Kaneana’s first book The One!!
I give this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you Beauty and Lace for the opportunity to read All we have is now by Kaneana May.
This is a story of 3 friends. The characters were relatable and loveable.
At times you are laughing and at others you may shed a tear.
I loved how the three characters were different and how there lives wound together
I loved their friendships. Their issues were real and at times heartbreaking.
I loved this book so much that I went out and bought Kaneana’s first book The One!!
I give this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
All we have is now by Kaneana May is a lovely book about life, friendships, family and the ups and downs that go with it. I loved this book, it was easy to read and a real page turner.
The three main characters Olive, Elsie and Bree each have very different and complicated family lives. The way Kaneana May explores their lives resonates with the reader instantly. I was completely drawn in within the first few pages and couldn’t wait to find out more. The complex issues the characters are facing build an instant connection between the reader and the book. I highly recommend this novel and will look for others by Kaneana May.
Thank you Beauty and Lace and Harper Collins Australia for the opportunity to read this book.
Thank you Beauty and Lace and Harlequin for the opportunity to read ‘All We Have is Now’ by Kaneana May.
I absolutely loved this book! It’s a relatable story which covers on some very modern but very emotional issues that people face. Olive, Elsie and Bree and the dramas they face are so realistic I felt like the author had been peeking in my life at time!
Life is hard as we follow the women’s as they face sorrow, grief, love and complicated family issues. This in turn strains the friendship at times. Tears are shed…. many tears.
This is a beautifully written story that you will enjoy! Do yourself a favour and read ‘All We Have is Now’ by Kaneana May.
Thanks again!
“All we have is now” is a story of how the path may impact on our present and affect our future. Meet friends Olivia, Bree & Elsie, all living with their past and trying to move into the future. Together they run a wellness center, supporting and helping their community.
Olivia has hidden her past, pushed it to the depths of her memory, not shared history with her friends. In doing this she became an efficient and structured person. But when Tom, a person from her past, comes to join their practice the past starts coming out. This and her family issues, her mum forgetting the past needs her to remember, despite its associated pains.
Bree’s life gets tipped upside down when her troubled sister drifts back in and out of her life. Having been a free and easy kind of woman, having her sister slows down her fun, gives her a bit of responsibility and opens up potential for a life change, hopefully for the better.
Elsie has been a step-mom for a while but yearns for a child of her own. Her excitement of falling pregnant and progressing through her pregnancy has her optimistic for an amazing future. But despite her knowledge of being a councilor for many working through issues, her own trauma may result in her losing everything, her friends, job, husband…
A touching and warming story of these ladies. I really enjoyed the escape it offered and the story within.
Thanks Beauty & Lace and the publishers for giving me such a fun read.
Thankyou to Beauty and Lace and Harlequin Enterprises for the opportunity to read All we have is now by Kaneana May.
I really like Kaneana’s writing style and I enjoyed this book as much as her first.
I enjoyed reading about all 3 of the main characters who were all going through different things, but I loved how they were still joined together. I also liked that they we’re relatable.
It’s was a book that made me laugh and cry, but definitely worth a read
Thank you to Beauty & Lace and Harlequin Enterprises for the opportunity to read All We Have is Now by Kaneana May.
I was so excited to be selected to read and review this book! I really enjoyed The One and had high expectations that this book would be just as good. I was not disappointed!
I laughed, I cried. I will definitely read again!
Thank you for the opportunity to read this book,
Thouroughly enjoyed it, a nice easy read about 3 friendships formed when they met at a wellness camp & then planned to one day open something together. working together their freindship became stronger. A lovely story getting to know each of their families. Laughter & tears throughout.
A great read
Thank you to Beauty & Lace for choosing me as one of the reviewers for this book. I’ve not read any Kaneana May books yet but have heard a lot about one of her other books, The One.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It took me on a rollercoaster of emotions, as I traveled with the realistic characters through their complicated issues. Olive, Elsie and Bree were so well written that I actually felt a friendship with each of them, as I laughed and then sobbed my way through life with them. I
I loved this book and will be chasing up her other book, The One. I can’t see anyone not liking this read….and I would tell everyone to read alongside a box of tissues