60 pages • 2 hours read
Rosie WalshThe Love of My Life
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 11-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Leo & Emma”
Chapter 11 Summary
Leo learned he was adopted by accident shortly after he began dating Emma. He was looking for childhood pictures when he came across his adoption paperwork. He confronted his parents and learned his biological mother had died, removing any chance he had to meet her.
While at a Tom Jones concert with Leo’s brother and his family—whose children are unruly and undisciplined—Leo confronts Emma on the color of her graduation gown. She says they probably changed the color over the years.
Chapter 12 Summary
As Emma takes Ruby to have ice cream, she worries that Leo has caught on to her lies. She didn’t graduate from St. Andrew’s University; she had to leave school and decided to finish at the Open University. After she graduated from the Open University, she changed her name to begin life anew. She had planned to tell Leo early in their relationship, but then he discovered his own adoption and was so furious at his parents after learning his biological mother died before he had a chance to meet her that she didn’t believe it was the right time to tell him. Time passed, and it got harder and harder to tell him.
As Emma and Ruby leave the trampoline club, Leo’s mother calls to complain that her husband has the flu and it has been difficult caring for him on her own. After the call, Emma receives text messages from her unidentified male acquaintance. He wants to meet in Northumberland the following week; Emma has a conference in Newcastle that week.
Chapter 13 Summary
Leo learns that Jeremy Rothschild complained about an article he wrote on the disappearance of Janice Rothschild because he included information on her treatment in a psychiatric hospital after the birth of her son, Charlie. Leo speaks to Emma on the phone. She tells him his father is ill and suggests he help his mother the following week while she and Ruby attend a conference. After the call, Emma accidentally sends Leo a message about arranging a meeting in Northumberland with an unknown person. Leo tries not to be suspicious, but he can’t help himself.
Chapter 14 Summary
Emma cries upon waking because she misses someone she once woke up beside. Later, she reflects on how she has moved her papers from the dining room to under Ruby’s bed. She also has removed some of the more incriminating documents, such as those about her parents’ deaths. At work teaching a postgrad class, Emma receives several calls from an unknown number and notices a man in a baseball cap watching her building. She anticipates the following week and her trip to Northumberland.
Chapter 15 Summary
While traveling to the conference, Ruby plays with her stuffed animal, Duck, and imagines they are traveling to a tea plantation in Darjeeling. Emma calls her unidentified male acquaintance and learns he will be alone at his family home in Alnmouth. She tells him she has rented a cabin there for Tuesday and Wednesday. He agrees to meet her at her rented house on Tuesday night. After the call, Emma reflects that she’s been dealing with this man for 20 years.
Chapter 16 Summary
Leo is caught off guard at work when a famous mistress of multiple cabinet members passes away. She has no stock obituary, so Leo must quickly write it. However, he is distracted by his investigation into Emma’s past. He keeps focusing on the message on Facebook from Robbie that matches a note he found in her paperwork. He looks Robbie up and finds that he is Robbie Rosen, a former series runner for Emma’s BBC show. Leo arranges to attend a death conference in Glasgow, where Robbie now lives. He calls Robbie and makes arrangements to meet him but lies about his identity, suggesting he is just a journalist interested in information on Emma for a future obituary. At the same time, Sheila sends Leo text messages from across the room, expressing concern about his relationship with Emma and his current state of distraction. Leo reflects on the papers Emma moved and the possible motives behind that move, such as a relationship with Robbie.
Chapter 17 Summary
Emma and Ruby arrive in Alnmouth, Northumberland. Emma recalls an episode on the beach four years previously when she ran into two people. She doesn’t explain who they were or what the relationship was but reveals the police had to be called. Emma reflects on her evening plans, revealing that her male acquaintance is Jeremy. She recalls meeting him the night she was supposed to have her monthly meal with Jill, how focused he was on Janice, and how he asked Emma if she had anything to do with Janice going missing. Emma calls Ruby in from the water and walks with her back to their rented cabin, reflecting on how Jeremy has always seemed to have this power over her, taking from her the normal family life she always craved.
Chapter 18 Summary
Jeremy arrives. Emma asks why he complained to Leo’s paper, and Jeremy says he thought Emma had told Leo about their connected past and that Leo mentioned the psychiatric hospital as a warning of some kind. Jeremy then tells Emma he’s gotten a letter from Janice. He says there was also one for Emma. Ruby wakes and speaks to Jeremy, learning about his son, Charlie, who attends college in Boston. Emma reads the letter from Janice. It mentions the crab Emma has been looking for and suggests Janice and Emma were together the first time Emma found it. Emma is overwhelmed that Janice would speak to her after so much time, and she’s surprised the Rothschild family is capable of breaking.
Chapter 19 Summary
A diary excerpt from Janice: The date is April 16, 2002, 17 years before the present time. Janice was in the park with Charlie, and he went missing. Charlie was playing happily one minute and gone the next. Janice screamed for help, knowing in her heart that this was always possible. Janice admitted to having panic attacks ever since.
Chapter 20 Summary
Leo meets with Robbie and learns that Emma fired her agent, Mags Tenterden, although Emma told Leo that Mags fired Emma. Robbie also insists that a “Big Knob BBC presenter” (134) insisted Emma be fired. Robbie realizes Leo is Emma’s husband and confronts him. He says he once saw Emma with Jeremy. Robbie says he suspects that Janice got Emma fired and Emma met with Jeremy to remedy the situation, but it didn’t work. Robbie then suggests that Jeremy might have something to do with Janice’s disappearance because he once hit a man in public.
Part 1, Chapters 11-20 Analysis
Leo found out he was adopted not long after he began dating Emma, and his reaction permanently altered his relationship with his parents. Emma’s interpretation of what she saw was to believe Leo had an issue with the secrets his parents kept, not just the nature of those secrets. This episode is what Emma referred to in an earlier chapter when she stated she couldn’t tell Leo her own secret because of his past, foreshadowing that adoption is connected to Emma’s secret in some way. This is also the first mention of adoption, a motif in the novel, but it will become a focal point of the plot as Emma’s secrets continue to be revealed.
Leo’s brother is introduced in Chapter 11. He is a father to two children who are unruly and undisciplined, setting up a contrast between that family and Leo’s family. As the plot develops, several more such comparisons in parenting style will emerge. The book also touches on the idea that some people might choose not to have or raise children because of their inability to offer a child a safe and caring environment.
When Leo asks Emma about her graduation picture and the inconsistency he found, she makes up a quick excuse. However, his question alerts her that he might have figured out her lie. This is the moment the reader first sees Emma’s lying, and Emma attempting to hide her secret further suggests she is willing to go to greater extremes to keep Leo from learning the truth. This injects tension into the plot and gives Emma’s secret a life of its own. The secret also relates to the theme, The Impact of Guilt, as Emma’s actions are intended to shield herself and Leo from the guilt she feels.
The lies continue to build as Emma receives multiple texts from Jeremy. Emma has already lied to Leo once about seeing this man, and she lies to him again, arranging to meet him during a visit to Northumberland. This fulfills some of the foreshadowing from the first ten chapters when Janice’s disappearance was announced.
The portrayal of Jeremy shifts depending on which character is talking about him. In the earlier chapters, Sheila spoke of him with great affection, painting him as a man who cared only about protecting his wife. This contrasts with Leo’s impression of him after he complained about an article Leo wrote for his paper about Janice that mentioned a minor incident that happened after the birth of her child; Jeremy seems unreasonably vindictive until the author connects Jeremy and Emma and implies the circumstances with the hospital somehow relate to Emma. Jeremy’s character continues to be called into question when Leo meets with Robbie and is told Jeremy hit a man in public. As is often the case, Jeremy has become a prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance in the eyes of the public, if not law enforcement.
Jeremy’s insistence on meeting with Emma suggests the two are having an affair, but their interaction is not intimate and seems solely focused on Janice. Jeremy introduces the character of his son while speaking to Ruby. This is the first time Charlie has been mentioned beyond being the infant child whose birth caused Janice’s apparent stay in a psychiatric hospital. Emma’s reaction to Ruby and Jeremy’s conversation about Charlie is emotional, raising questions about Emma’s true relationship with the Rothschilds. The mystery deepens when Emma states her belief that “this family was unbreakable” (128); if Emma were having an affair with Jeremy, she would unlikely believe such a thing about his family, so the nature of their relationship remains unclear to the reader.
The letter Emma receives from Janice references the crab mentioned in the prologue and suggests that Emma and Janice are the two people in the prologue. However, it fails to explain the medical emergency that appears to happen in the prologue’s final paragraphs, while it increases the likelihood that Emma’s relationship with Jeremy is not a sexual one and that her association with them was focused more on Janice than Jeremy. The only thing clear at this point is that the relationship likely did not end on good terms. Walsh chooses this moment to inject a diary entry from Janice that further confuses the relationship between the Rothschilds and Emma. This excerpt talks about a time when Charlie went missing from the park when he was a toddler, describing Janice’s fear and continued anxiety over her child’s safety. It is not yet clear how that connects to Emma, but it does explore the theme of The Emotional, Physical, and Mental Impact of Motherhood by showcasing the fear and uncertainty that plagued Janice in the early years of her child’s life. This mirrors Emma’s constant need to check Ruby’s breathing.
Just as Emma lies to Leo about her whereabouts and the meeting with Jeremy, he deceives her to learn more about the lies he believes she has been telling him. Leo’s meeting with Robbie does not reveal the affair he thought it would but rather the lies Emma told about her talent agent and her firing from the BBC show. While Leo’s investigation bears fruit, his lies to Emma are no better than her lies to him. His actions increase the number of secrets held in their marriage, relating again to the theme of secrets in a relationship, but they also show that neither one of them is above lying. It simply comes down to who has the best excuse for their actions.
