This Is a Love Story Audiobook By Jessica Soffer cover art

This Is a Love Story

A Novel

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This Is a Love Story

By: Jessica Soffer
Narrated by: Marin Ireland
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About this listen

An intimate and lyrical celebration of great love, great art, and the sacrifices we make for both

For fifty years, Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now.

Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew—their courtship and early marriage, their blossoming creative lives—and the parts they didn’t always want to know—the determined young student of Abe’s looking for a love story of her own, and their son, Max, who believes his mother chose art over parenthood and who has avoided love and intimacy at all costs. Told in various points of view, even in conversation with Central Park itself, these voices weave in and out to paint a portrait as complicated and essential as love itself.

An homage to New York City, to romance, and even to loss, This Is a Love Story tenderly and suspensefully captures deep truths about life and marriage in radiant prose. It is about love that endures despite what life throws at us, or perhaps even because of it.

©2025 Jessica Soffer (P)2025 Penguin Audio
Family Life Genre Fiction Psychological Romance New York Marriage

Critic reviews

“Get ready to have your emotions rocked by this moving family saga about a couple’s enduring love and the son who feels left out of their story.”TODAY.com

“It's an ode to a marriage, but also to Central Park itself.”Town & Country

“Soffer’s writing is simple yet poetic. Most impressive is her ability to capture the depths of emotions of all her characters while rooting readers in such a strong sense of place…A New York love story at its finest.”Library Journal

What listeners say about This Is a Love Story

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Truth,honesty, reality

Boring and yet you can’t stop listening and then hearing…it’s about fun and failing, it’s about disappointment and keeping on and caring and mistakes and do overs and not being able to do over and living to forgive.. it’s about being there and sometimes not.. and being sorry you weren’t..it’s about life and living…it’s really just about love…

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    5 out of 5 stars
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A Masterpiece!!

An incredible and compelling portrait of love, life and loss. The story is an absolute work of art. The characters are so real and relatable you feel like you’ve known them forever. The narration is also perfection. Highly recommend this beautiful novel!!! Beautiful work Jessica Soffer!
reviewed by: Katie Kaizer

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The love rather through good or bad times it’s always there

This book was so emotionally good it teaches you to remember the good and bad in life as eventually it all comes to an end. I can’t explain the love that runs through this book with the good as well as the bad. It makes you take a good hard look at life and the way you live it will r don’t.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

This is more of a life story than a love story

I listened to this on audio and the narrator was amazing, excellent job for sure . This author has great writing skills and I would definitely recommend and read more from her . With that send this book is more of a life story over love . It was heartbreaking and not just for the loss of the main character in the end of her life but for all the very reasons that make a life story very complex,sad and difficult at times. I think the writer showcased too much of the lows in this couple life and the results of those hard times and didn’t touch enough on the beautiful times in life . The beautiful times were skimmed and the hard times were showcased. More balance would have been such a better way to go,just my humble opinion. If you call a book a love story then show it more . Life is hard and complicated but if you only focus on those moments it can be a bit depressing. The read had a bit too much “ depress “ to it .

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Ugh

It was a terrible book. No redeeming storytelling - even the park descriptions are odd. It took forever to be over.

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Boring

Boring hard to follow along maybe it was the narrators voice . The narrator had a sing song to her voice.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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terrible story line

unable to follow, was all over the place and wasn't good. a big waste of my time and money

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Disorganized

Hard to follow story. Did not like it at all. Not consistent enough for the story

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