Kiltie’s Advent Book Calendar – 3rd Dec

One Day in December by Josie Silver; Penguin

Page Count (e-book) – 414

The Blurb:

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist. After all, life isn’t a scene from the movies, is it? But then, through a misted-up bus window one freezing day, she sees a man she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic…and then her bus drives away.

Laurie thinks she’ll never see the boy from the bus again. But at a party later that year, her best friend Sarah introduces her to the new love of her life. Who is, of course, the boy from the bus.

Determined to let him go, Laurie gets on with her life. But what if fate has other plans?

My Review:

This is a lovely, lovely book and one which I struggled to put down. It was a new read for me and I enjoyed every moment of it. The story is told in the first person from both Laurie and Jack’s perspective and it was lovely to have the dual insight of what they were both thinking. It enhanced the story and increased the frustration when they were both going about their lives independently of each other.

I was drawn in from the very first chapter. Most of us have been in the ‘eyes meeting across a crowded room / a busy cafe / a railway carriage’ situation or, in this instance, through the window of a busy, sweaty bus! Therefore, identifying with Laurie’s frustration as the bus pulls away, and pulls them apart, was easy to do. Now, personally, I’d have been off the bus at the next stop and legging it back to the handsome Jack but that probably wouldn’t have made for much of a story line so hats off to Ms Silver for refraining from this obvious course of action and taking us on a much longer path towards the end of their December tale.

Both Laurie and Jack are immensely likeable and I found myself rooting for them all the way through. This reader was completely immersed in the tale and I felt all the ups and downs as keenly as the characters involved within.

So, after all that, the question is, ‘Is it a happy ending?’  Well there’s only one way you’re going to find out but I will leave you by saying the conclusion was absolutely perfect.

Available in e-book and paperback on Amazon