Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love: A 90-Year-Old's First Kiss Quest – A Funny, Heartwarming Literary Romance

Eddie Winston is Looking for Love By Marianne Cronin 5 Stars First, I want to say, I don’t know how this book, Eddie Winston is Looking for Love could be rated anything less than 5 Stars. This book would be considered women’s fiction or contemporary fiction. Marianne Cronin wrote us a beautiful story about a 90 year old man who has never been kissed. But… this story is sooooo much more than that. We meet Eddie, and trust me, you’re gonna love Eddie and wish you had an Eddie in your life, as a 90 year old man that works in a charity shop. He is simply the sweetest, kindest, and most thoughtful person you will ever meet. You’ll meet the people in his life, including Bella, a young lady struggling with grief. They pair up perfectly as a best friend duo. You will experience so many things reading this book. Love, loss, friendship, great insights, and laughs. So many smiles and giggles. I’d recommend this book for everyone to read! It is such a pick me up kind of book. I really mean smile after smile while you are reading. If you haven’t read this one, then get it and read it. You can thank me later! Just for clarity - there is a trigger warning… grief over the loss of a significant other (but also healing).

Eddie is a charming, if unusual, lead character. I found this to be an enjoyable book for a summer read. The main characters were drawn well enough that I could picture them as if they were old friends.

This incredible novel, which has dual timelines (1965 and current day), is three stories in one. The first concerns Eddie’s early days as a young, bumbling English professor in love with the wife of his serial-cheating department chair. The second is Bella’s current-day story. Only 24, she’s struggling with the death of the love of her life and life in general. The third story begins at the unlikely intersection of their lives. What I love about Eddie is his enthusiasm for life and people. His retirement job at a charity store has him sorting and pricing donated items. Some items are total trash, and he assigns them to the garbage bin. Then there’s the sentimental items, the ones that—regardless of monetary value—might cause “donator’s regret” after being disposed of. Eddie has a special place for those: on a shelf in his own apartment, where they’ll be until someone wants them back or until he dies. When Eddie and Bella meet, both lives change for the better. When she learns he’s never been kissed, she makes it her mission to get him his first kiss and signs him up on a dating app with mixed results. Through it all, Eddie is there to help Bella with her grief because she’s not handling it very well by herself. The secondary characters, including a guinea pig named Pushkin Spiderman Winston, are marvelous. A few of the human ones could be kiss-worthy, but I wanted to kick a couple. Interestingly, part of the plot is presented in letters: unmailed love letters Eddie puts on his shelf, letters to and from someone who “could be” Eddie’s first kiss, and the letters Bella writes to her dead boyfriend as per her therapist’s instructions. Wondering about the birds and gold locket on the cover? I’ll never kiss-and-tell-why, but they’re important parts of the plot, which made me cry happy tears. If I met Eddie, would I give him his first kiss? You betcha!

“I sort through the donations made by the living and the dead and I put a price tag on the souvenirs of someone else’s life”. The most heartwarming story about love and friendship. Eddie is 90 years old and he's never been kissed. He spends his days volunteering at a thrift store where he sorts through all of the incoming donations (and keeps things he feels like will be missed). At the thrift store, he meets Bella. Bella just tragically lost her boyfriend. The two of them develop an uncommon friendship (with Eddie's guinea pig, Pushkin) and both find answers they're looking for. First off, we know how much I love an older MC (Ove, Frederick Fife), and now Eddie has been added to that list. His friendship with Bella is unmatched and a beautiful representation that we can learn and grow from all people. I couldn't put this down. I loved Lennie & Margot, but I might love Bella & Eddie more. Thank you NetGalley and Harper Perennial for the ARC!!!

4.5 stars I enjoyed this book once it got started. It took me a minute to get into it, especially with the back-n-forth POVs between different times. Then I got invested in Eddie's story and really started to hope he would find his Bridie again, cried when I thought he was so close and missed his chance and then again when he finally did. The friendship that he had with Bella was heart warming, the friendship that they both needed without really needing it. Bella kept Eddie young and Eddie kept Bella alive.

Eddie lived his life with few expectations. After all, when you have lived for over 90 years, you begin to understand that life rarely works out the way you thought it would. He has one goal and that is to find a particular item and restore it to it's owner. This leads him to a secondhand shop so many times, the owner asks him if he would like to work there. As Eddie works at the shop he comes across some unusual items that find a home on a shelf in his own home. These items lead Eddie to meet people he would never have met if not for his work there. His journey from there on out is filled with adventure and interesting people all the while Eddie Winston is looking for love.

Likeable characters, but the story is mostly flat and in the end there are so many much better books out there that I would not recommend this one.

A delightful book. Characters you love, and crazy experiences, as well as pathos and sadness of life. Eddie is 90 (though I think that 70 would have been a better age for him), and has never had a romantic kiss. He works in a charity shop and processes the belongings of departed souls, sometimes taking home some treasures. A 24-year-old girl with pink hair, Bella, brings in a box of Jake’s things, including a notebook and shoes he has written love notes all over. She ends up coming back for things, which Eddie anticipated, and they develop an unlikely but deep friendship. Bella’s notes to Jake are lower case but heartfelt. She hasn’t been able to cry about his death. Flashback to Bridie, about to marry a man she doesn’t love, who is a lecturer. Eddie is a student and they are clearly in love, but Bridie, as a Catholic, remains faithful to her horrible and unfaithful husband. She has a son, who when he is at university, establishes that Eddie is still alive and lecturing there. But she doesn’t take it any further. Meanwhile, Bella encourages Eddie to join a senior dating app and there are some very amusing unsuccessful matches, a photographer who turns out to be gay, and a woman who pays for Eddie and Bella to deliver love letters to her sister in person in Crete. There is a notice in the paper that Eddie Winston had died, so Bridie goes to the funeral and leaves behind the note / poem that Eddie left for her when they were young (Eddie and Bella go for fun), so they finally connect. On the way to meet up, there is a car accident and Eddie is in hospital, but Bridie (Birdie) does find him and finally (it’s not too late), he gets his first kiss. I was sorry when the book ended - just loved it.

This book was an absolute delight. The characters all are captivating and well developed. Eddie Winston will make you want to be a happier more joyful person! I highly recommend you stop reading the news and start reading this instead!

This was such a beautiful and moving story. Such a mix of love, of longing and of the immense power of friendship. Eddie and Bella’s relationship is particularly powerful as they help each other move forward In very different ways. Finally, at 90 years old Eddie is going to have his first kiss and is helped to undertake this mission, by his young friend Bella. With flashbacks to a long ago past and the promise of future joy this is an emotional rollercoaster with great rewards to the reader.

A nice light , pleasant read.