Literary Life | The Woman He Loved Before by Dorothy Koomson

Dorothy Koomson is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. I've already read and reviewed two of her other books (The Rose Petal Beach and The Flavours of Love) because Koomson's writing is so realistic that I get completely lost in the literature. I have no trouble ever imagining the events within her novels and I think it's a testament to her talent that many readers keep on coming back for more.That was exactly the case for me with The Woman He Loved Before. I didn't even need to read the blurb; just seeing Koomson's name on the spine meant I'd be taking it home to read. As the kids of some generation probably said, it was a no-brainer. 

I think I can say it wasn't my favourite book by Koomson. The Flavours of Love remains my number one but this latest read was pretty fantastic too. Koomson incorporates fast switching narratives along with diary entries that take up entire chapters. I love the stylistic use of diary entries, so much so that I'm currently experimenting with a diary-style book myself, but I did at times find it jarring to read. I don't know if it's because the entries felt less like a diary than what I am personally used to but then again, the subject matter was so intense that maybe any type of text would have elicited the same reaction from me.

The Woman He Loved Before follows Libby (short for Liberty, she'll have you know) who is a beauty therapist and very much the embodiment of a strong, independent woman. In a bid to buy a car, she meets Jack Britcham and immediately has no time for his continual attempts to ask her out. Eventually he wears her down but Libby then has to contend with everything in Jack's life that came long before she did. Jack's first wife, Eve, is more than a mere presence in both the book and Libby's life and Koomson seems to cover whole decades within the front and back cover. It's certainly a rich read and though it is dark and intense and sometimes difficult to read, it's thoroughly gripping and becomes increasingly hard to put down. As if often the case with her work, I raced through The Woman He Loved Before in the space of two days and enjoyed pretty much every minute of reading it.

Koomson excels at weaving worlds together through using emphatic and thematic undercurrents. There is a real theme of loss that perpetuates the novel (lost love, a loss of time, a loss of trust). It is these universal feelings that we, as readers, can identify with that ground Koomson's work to make it so brilliantly readable. That's why I think I keep coming back to her novels; it is more than the fact that Koomson writes black leading ladies which I will openly admit is certainly part of the appeal as a mixed race young woman. But more importantly than that, Koomson's work is always clever and cryptic and compelling - The Woman He Loved Before is no exception.