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Fran and Will met when they were just 7 years old. They became best friends and did everything together. As teens, they fell in love. Then Will’s father moved him away from England to Australia, and they didn’t see each other again for decades.
Fran was heartbroken but moved on with her life. Now it’s 25 years later and she’s a single mom raising a teen boy, working at a job that pays the bills. And Will walks back into her life. She’s hesitant to spend time with him, but she can’t resist the love and friendship that’s still there even after so long. They rekindle that flame. But Will has a secret he doesn’t share with Fran until it’s too late: she is going to face heartbreak again. And Fran has a secret of her own that she’s afraid could make Will want to leave her.
Before We Grow Old is one of those sweet but tearjerking stories: there’s love and friendship but tragedy. I always feel like it’s such a dirty trick for an author to pull: bring two lovers together then have them face heartbreaking loss. But then again, that’s not usually my type of book. It follows a fairly standard formula and works reasonably well, though, for those who love to cry and be sad. So I’ll recommend it for those readers.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 10 uses of strong language, about 15 instances of moderate profanity, about 10 uses of mild language, and 35 instances of the name of Deity in vain, as well as about 16 uses of the British curse word bl-. Sexual content includes kissing and a couple of scenes where brief moves after kissing happen and it is understood sex occurs but there are no further details in the story. Violence includes a reference to a father hitting an adult son once in the past.
