Mari Jane Law has done it again. Love in a Hurry is Book 4 in her Love & Mishaps series of funny and heart-achy romances between ordinary people, with a backdrop of religious inflexibility and trauma. Social observation is subtle and the reader can join the dots about organised religion and its effect on lonely and vulnerable people. 

Irish Catholic Father Kieran Quinn is forty and disillusioned with the church, alienated from his younger brother and realising that his mam manipulated and brainwashed him into joining the clergy.  Now he wants out, and he wants to get married, have a child, deal with his rogue prostate, make peace with his little brother, and get a new job, as soon as he can. Phew!

Miranda Morton is in her late thirties, with a young son Oscar, conceived by IVF. She works as a carer for Judith, who is prickly and let’s face it, pretty awful.  Miranda would love to be loved by a man, and have another child – actually, she’s horny and a bit desperate.  She suffered from abandonment as a little girl and still feels the effects of a childhood that had food insecurity and foster care. Judith is the mother figure she craves, but Judith is so bitter that Miranda can’t get close to her.

When Kieran and Miranda meet, it’s BAAAAMMMM – instalove – and they are determined to be together – they reach that conclusion by Chapter 5. Unfortunately for them, finding each other is the easy bit and the rest of the novel is a romantic tragi-comedy as they face one obstacle after another: nasty Judith, Kieran’s brother, medical issues and even the local Bishop.

Miranda is one of the loveliest romance heroines I’ve read. She apparently looks like a horse, is insecure, lonely but full of so much love, hope and brio that I wish she was a friend of mine. Her enthusiasm for Kieran is hilarious and awkward. There’s a delicious tension between what she says and what she is thinking and the pages in her point of view are some of the funniest and sweetest in the book.

Irishman Kieran is the priest of my dreams – he is kind and wise, and bighearted, and I cheered for him as he finds his way to Miranda. I love how mean old Judith underestimates him.

MJL shines in the way that she can put heartbreaking tragedy next to slapstick situational comedy without jarring the tone. I have rarely seen this done so well.

A few quibbles I have are with Judith – snarky Judith is much more believable than new-leaf Judith, and some of the dialogue is clunky, possibly because so much is happening. Often there are lot of characters in the same space wanting to be heard. These are tiny observations against what is a beautiful and insightful romance.

The Love & Mishaps series takes a clear-eyed look at organised religion in Britain in the 1980s and the present. There are plenty of trigger warnings, including for abandonment and cot death, but Mari Jane Law writes with such love and care for her characters that you will be in good hands.  Terrific!

Laura Black is a romance editor, reader and reviewer based in Queensland, Australia. You can visit me on Instagram @laura_black_reads