Author: Josie Silver
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: October 2018
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Buy the Book: Amazon | BN | Audible
Description: 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.
My Thoughts: Imagine it…you’re living your life, today being another day just like every other day, and fate kicks you right in the gut when you see “the one” through the window of the bus on which you are riding home. Your eyes meet and you know, you feel the jolt, and then the bus drives away before that person can get on board. This is exactly what happens to Laurie one snowy December day on her way home from work. She is the type of woman who doesn’t really subscribe to romance and is mostly convinced that true love is a plot device used to sell movie tickets. Call me a romantic sap but this book nailed it on all levels. From the moment Laurie first sees Jack through the bus window, the following year she is trolling bus stops and cafés in the hope of finding him to ultimately crossing paths with him when he is being introduced to her as her best friend’s new boyfriend, the author does a brilliant job of drawing the reader into every emotion and thought Laurie is feeling.
Laurie can’t stop living her life and she would never dream of hurting her best friend to tell her that Jack is “the one” she has been searching for all this time. This story focuses instead on the beautiful friendship Laurie and Jack develop over ten years. Though it’s heartbreaking at times, it’s all too realistic as they each to pretend not to feel what they feel.
I adored Laurie and Jack and though I normally get frustrated at the “missed opportunity” plot device. However, the author wrote this one so beautifully that I couldn’t be frustrated as I really liked Laurie’s best friend, Sarah, too. When a story touches the heart as this one did and there are no villains, I cheer for everyone to get their happily ever after and I am avidly rooting for them. These are people just like us; good people who deserve better than what fate has thrown at them. I loved seeing how Laurie and Jack remained good people who didn’t just think of themselves.
Though this story spans ten years, yes you read that right, TEN YEARS, it doesn’t feel like it because the story flows so smoothly that it seems everything happens in the blink of an eye. The one and ONLY downside to this story is that it takes TEN YEARS for resolution and closure, but like Laurie and Jack, I was all in to see this through. My sappy heart couldn’t get enough of this charming, witty and heartwarming story.
My Final Verdict: Fans with a sappy heart like mine will adore this story, but readers with less sap who are drawn to charming characters, witty dialogue and an interesting storyline will enjoy this as well.
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