Strange Shape of Love

Herta Feely’s Strange Shape of Love is a tender, layered, and emotionally intelligent novel that captures the ways our past shapes our present, and how love, memory, and guilt can both nourish and haunt us. Told primarily through the eyes of Charlotte Cooper, a mid-career journalist who finds herself reluctantly relocated from New York to London, the story unfolds with wit, poignancy, and quiet emotional force.

From the opening pages, the book roots us in mystery. Charlotte receives a manila envelope containing a nude photo from years ago, unaccompanied by any explanation. This unsettling moment sets the tone for a narrative steeped in reckoning with secrets, lost love, and a past that refuses to stay buried. As Charlotte tries to make sense of her new surroundings and navigate professional upheaval (her glossy lifestyle magazine being folded into an online-only British media empire), she also finds herself on a deeply personal journey back to a country and a man she abandoned under tragic circumstances.

Thematically, Strange Shape of Love explores loss, self-forgiveness, trauma, and the strange loops of memory. Charlotte’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend Russ, who cheats on her, mirrors some of the emotional dislocation she still feels from her time with Rafe, the sculptor she posed for in college, and the man who arguably saw her most truly. “Was it love at first sight?” she wonders, looking back on their electric meeting at Oxford. “Whoever loved, not having loved at first sight?” The recurring thread of the question, what love is, how we know it, and how we lose it, gives the book its emotional spine.

Feely writes women with nuance and compassion. Charlotte isn’t always likable. She’s impulsive, guarded, and prone to flights of self-doubt, but she is always compelling. Her inner life is richly drawn, and her interactions with other women, particularly her vibrant best friend Celia and the enigmatic Regina, whom she meets on a transatlantic flight, add warmth and complexity. Celia’s line, “Time to put all that behind you,” becomes a thematic imperative as Charlotte stumbles toward resolution, emotionally and professionally.

What I appreciated most was the book’s tone: despite dealing with heavy topics like grief, betrayal, and even human trafficking, it never becomes oppressive. There’s humor (the subplot involving a stolen 18-karat gold toilet is both bizarre and brilliant), charm, and genuine emotional movement. Feely’s prose is accessible but elegant, with just enough introspective depth to elevate the narrative without bogging it down.

By the end, I felt not just that Charlotte had grown, but that I had witnessed something quietly profound—how the shape of love is never fixed, and how revisiting the past can, sometimes, open the door to a better future. For readers who enjoy smart women’s fiction with a blend of mystery, romance, and self-discovery, Strange Shape of Love is well worth the read.