Love and Other Paradoxes by Catriona Silvey

Timy reviews Love and Other Paradoxes, a standalone romance novel by Catriona Silvey.

An eARC was received by the publisher, HarperVoyager via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Possible fit for The Sound of Madness Reading Challenge 2025 prompts:

Joker prompt that goes with anything: Freed from Desire

THIS LOVE STORY IS ABOUT TO BE REWRITTEN

Cambridge University student Joe Greene dreams of a future where his words will echo through the ages.

Then, the future quite literally finds him – in the form of Esi. She’s part of a time-traveling tour to witness history’s greatest moments. In Esi’s era, Joe is as renowned as Shakespeare. And he’s about to meet Diana, a fellow student, who will become his muse and the subject of his famous love poems.

But Esi is harbouring a secret. Something will happen at Cambridge this year that will wreck Esi’s life, and she’s hell-bent on changing it. Until she bumps into Joe, and sends his destiny into a tailspin. To save both their futures, Esi becomes Joe’s dating coach, helping him win over Diana. But when Joe starts falling for Esi instead – they both face a crucial

Is the future set in stone, or can we rewrite our fates?

The sweetness of romcom About Time collides with the rich melancholy and high-stakes romance of Time Traveller’s Wife in this gorgeous new love story destined to be future classic.

I wanted to pick a love song, but also one that gives back the vibe of the book and Joe and Esi’s characters, in a way. I think Miles Apart by Poe the Passenger works nicely enough.

I was a bit reluctant to read my first Catriona Silvey novel, Meet Me in Another Life, but something kept calling to me, and I fell utterly in love with that book. And I think it’s grossly underrated, and more people should read it. I was also lucky to meet Silvey in Glasgow, where I learned that she had a new book coming out in 2025. So I was keeping an eye open for it and thanks to whoever handles HarperVoyager’s NetGalley account, my wishes came true.

I was supposed to read Love and Other Paradoxes slowly(ish) over a weekend, but instead I ended up reading it in a day, practically in one sitting. Oops. Absolutely no regrets, though. So, Love and Other Paradoxes is a more or less classic rom-com with a time traveling twist. Set in Cambridge in the early 2000s, Joe is facing failure at college, and he is not closer to his dream of becoming a famous poet. When he meets Esi, things get even more complecated. He gets a glimpse into the future he always wanted for himself, and so he is determined to do everything he can to make it happen. Esi only wants to change one thing in her past, to make her future happier, but their meeting – and meddling – sets of a chain of events that they might not be able to control. All the while facing questions they might not have answers for. Is out fate predestined? Or can our acts change the future we might know coming? And what if the future we thought we want is not the one we actually need. Or maybe it is. But do we even know what we want? Really, really want?

Love and Other Paradoxes is super easy to read, but then I expected as much. The characters are well rounded out, they have flaws, they have stupid decisions, and some of them are not so likeable *cough* Diana *cough*. And I’m absolutely delighted to learn about the game played on the campus called Assassins. I really wish it was featured more in the book as it sounds super fun. And made Rob – Joe’s roommate and best friend – the most fun character of the lot. He worked as the comedy relief and actually was entertaining.

The plot was less predictable than your average rom-com, (even if it did work with some tropes – love triangle, chiefly, which is usually not my favorite, but I promise it’s not annoying here. Well, not as much, anyway.), however, it kept me guessing until the end how the different decisions and actions will play out. It could have gone either way, and I appreciated the way Silvey built up the story’s arc. The time-traveling aspect really did add to it. As this is the second novel I read by Silvey, I can’t help but compare the two, maybe unjustly. While I enjoyed reading Love and Other Paradoxes, it didn’t gave me the same emotional impact as Meet Me in Another Life did.

All the same, lovers of the romance genre with a touch of sci-fi would have a good time with Love and Other Paradoxes, and hopefully it will appeal to a wider audience.