One Day in December

by Josie Silver

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Paperback: 400 Pages

Publisher: Broadway Books (October 16, 2018)

Two people. Ten chances. One unforgettable love story.

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic…and then her bus drives away.

Certain they’re fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn’t find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they “reunite” at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It’s Jack, the man from the bus. It would be.

What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.

“Josie Silver writes with a warmth so palpable her characters sneak their way into your heart and stay for a long time.”—Jill Santopolo, New York Times-bestselling author of The Light We Lost (a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick)

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

‘I’ve got a date next week… I met him in a lift. I held him to ransom with the stop button until he agreed to ask me out.’ I really need to take life lessons from Sarah… I need to make ‘What would Sarah do?’ my life motto.

 

I’ll have to take a rain check. I’ve got a double date tonight with Ben and Jerry. They’re sweet… We’re going to work our way through the Karamel Sutra. It’s going to be a thrill a minute.

 

If I tell you something, do you promise to never tell another living soul, not even a goldfish?

 

I’ve only met Oscar’s brother once before. All I can recall is that Gerry doesn’t seem to be much like his easy-going younger brother, and his poker-thin wife, Felicity, looks as if she exists on fresh air and Chanel No. 5.

 

… how very tangled and complicated our lives have become over the years. We are a triangle, but our sides have kept changing length. Nothing has ever quite been equal. Perhaps it’s time to learn how to stand on our own, rather than lean on each other.

 

My Review:

 

A pair of strangers shared a fleeting connection when their eyes met and locked at a bus stop.   Laurie was on the crowded bus, while Jack was sitting at the bus stop. They did not speak to each other but their profound gaze left a deep and lasting impression before the bus pulled away and parted them yet again.   Neither ever forgot that interaction and though they had each searched, they did not meet up again until Laurie’s roommate, Sarah, introduced Jack as her new boyfriend a year later. Oops, what a mess… but what to do about it?   Denial and avoidance was apparently the unspoken plan.

This engaging tale covers a decade of unfortunately bad timing in the life these two conflicted soul mates as well as their small group of friends. Written in my favorite dual POV, this clever scribe’s writing was crisp and sparkled with wit and levity during the first half, although, to my consternation, grew steadily heavier with angst and conflict as the characters matured and struggled with various life stressors, relationships foibles, family, and work issues. I was running out of pages and hope for resolution when the crafty author pulled a sly and smooth move, which provided that much desired and highly satisfactory HEA. This was my first exposure to the delightful Josie Silver – what a trickster!

New additions to my Brit Vocabulary List include squiffy which Mr. Google said was a stuffy or overheated room; naff – which apparently has several meanings such as tacky, lame or uncool, and go away; and my new favorite of cock-a-hoop which means highly pleased or excited. I’m cock-a-hoop to have found a new author to fangirl.

 

About Josie Silver

JOSIE SILVER is an unashamed romantic who met her husband when she stepped on his foot on his twenty-first birthday. She lives with him, her two young sons, and their cats in a little town in England called Wolverhampton.

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