Silver offers a story with a missed-chances premise in which romance, drama, and an unwavering hope in fated love are the linchpins.
One Day in December offers a missed-chances setup with enormous repercussions.
Laurie spies a man out her bus window standing in the December snow. Their eyes meet, and she can't explain it, except to feel that this is what people mean when they say "love at first sight." The bus pulls away before she can speak to the man or even find out his name. She knows it's ridiculous and fanciful, but the idea that they're fated to be together feels real, and for a year Laurie can't get him out of her head, searching everywhere she goes for that face and that feeling.
Then her roommate and best friend Sarah introduces her to her new boyfriend, who's she's falling for quickly and fully--and it's Him. His name is Jack. And Laurie's heart is broken. She can't tell Sarah the truth, and she's not even sure Jack remembers their non-encounter--much less that he might have felt the same spark.
This is angst-ridden and rooooooomantic. Silver provides readers with lots of tears and drama, gasping, longing, and breathlessness. Some of the characters had juvenile-seeming reactions that I found frustrating (for example, calling a moment's sighting without even speaking “love” and clinging to it for years--YEARS!--and a marriage's upheaval when one partner doesn’t want to move for the other spouse's work).
Ultimately I wasn't sure the male love interest was shown to be worth so much agony and energy. However, I love a can’t-be-together/must-be-together setup, and this is a biggie.
A minor note: I love wine, but there is So Much Wine-Drinking in this book that I began to feel distracted by the number of mentions of this. Watch yer livers, characters!
I listened to this as an audiobook as wisely recommended by my friend Jennifer, who correctly stated that the British accents are glorious to listen to.
Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?
Josie Silver also wrote an irresistible second-chances premise in her book The Two Lives of Lydia Hill.
I first mentioned One Day in December in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/24/21 Edition.
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