Tag: contemporary fiction

One Day In Summer by Shari Low #BookReview @BoldwoodBooks

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One Day in SummerWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for One Day In Summer by Shari Low. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to participate in the tour and to Boldwood Books for my review copy via NetGalley.

You can read my review below. Do also check out the posts by my tour buddies, Pam at Books, Life and Everything and Tizi’s Book Review.

One Day In SummerAbout the Book

One day in summer, three lives are about to change forever.

After two decades of looking after others, this is the day that Agnetha McMaster is reclaiming her life. It’s her turn, her time but will she have the courage to start again?

Ten years ago, Mitchell McMaster divorced Agnetha and married her best friend, Celeste. Now he suspects his second wife is having an affair. This is the day he’ll discover if karma has come back to bite him.

Thanks to a DNA test, this is the day that Hope McTeer will finally meet her biological father. But will the reunion bring Hope the answers that she’s looking for?

Three people. Twenty-four hours. A lifetime of secrets to unravel.

Format: ebook (324 pages)         Publisher: Boldwood Books
Publication date: 11 June 2020 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find One Day In Summer on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK| Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

With books such as This Is Me, Shari Low has perfected the art of the multi-character storyline and achieves the same feat with One Day in Summer. It has the same structure as previous novels, such as One Day in Winter, with the events taking place over the space of one eventful day, albeit with the occasional trip back into the past.

Set in Glasgow, like many of the author’s other books, readers familiar with the city will have fun spotting places and landmarks mentioned in the book. Those who have read previous books will be pleased to see return appearances by a few characters. And all readers should look out for a couple of  ‘close encounters’ between characters in the different storylines.

After recent traumatic events, Agnetha has many reasons to be thankful for the situation in which she finds herself. She has two lovely daughters, a successful business, a support group who understand exactly what she’s been through and the possibility of a new man in her life. She deserves today, her forty-fifth birthday, to be a good one.

One would have to be in a generous mood to wish her ex-husband, Mitchell, the same, although I did start to feel less hostile towards him as the book progressed. At least, he has the humility to be aware of his own shortcomings and to recognise the concept of karma. I wish I could say the same about Mitchell’s current wife, Celeste. You may, like me, have a wish to develop the superpower that enables you to shoot invisible laser darts that will set hair extensions on fire, explode face fillers and pierce silicon boob implants.

More serious issues are woven into the storyline, such as family breakdown, illness and bereavement, but never in such a way as to overwhelm the message that you should never give up the hope of second chances in life.

As the day draws to a close, like pieces of a jigsaw, things finally slot into place. But will it show the picture you were expecting? In the epilogue, which cleverly echoes the prologue, the reader finds out whether Agnetha decides to forgive the mistakes of the past and respond positively to the plea, “take a chance on me”.

As one character observes, “This was the most bizarre day. One minute stressful, one minute sad, then funny, then loving, then easy, then hard…” One Day in Summer is the ideal one day binge read; a skilfully crafted story of love, loss and new beginnings.

In three words: Romantic, engaging, heart-warming

Try something similar: A Wedding in the Olive Garden by Leah Fleming

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Shari Headshot Dec 4About the Author

Shari Low is the #1 bestselling author of over 20 novels, including One Day In Winter and My One Month Marriage, and a collection of parenthood memories called Because Mummy Said So. She lives near Glasgow.

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The Glass House by Eve Chase #BookReview

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The Glass HouseAbout the Book

Outside a remote manor house in an idyllic wood, a baby girl is found.

The Harrington family takes her in and disbelief quickly turns to joy. They’re grieving a terrible tragedy of their own and the beautiful baby fills them with hope, lighting up the house’s dark, dusty corners. Desperate not to lose her to the authorities, they keep her secret, suspended in a blissful summer world where normal rules of behaviour – and the law – don’t seem to apply.

But within days a body will lie dead in the grounds. And their dreams of a perfect family will shatter like glass. Years later, the truth will need to be put back together again, piece by piece…

Format: eARC (400 pages)                Publisher: Michael Joseph
Publication date: 14th May 2020   Genre: Mystery

Find The Glass House  on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

I’ve enjoyed both the books by Eve Chase I’ve read previously – Black Rabbit Hall and The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde (US title, The Wildling Sisters). The author sticks to the same successful formula in The Glass House (US title, The Daughters of Foxcote Manor): multiple points of view and timelines, a story involving family secrets and an atmospheric location. In this case, the latter is the slightly rundown Foxcote Manor situated deep in the dense Forest of Dean.

The book opens in 1971 with the arrival at Foxcote Manor of the Harrington family – Jeannie, her daughter Hera and son Teddy along with nanny, Rita (known in the family as ‘Big Rita’). Jeannie’s husband, Walter, is notable by his absence on business and it transpires this is no summer vacation but an enforced relocation from their London home in the wake of traumatic events. And it becomes apparent that Rita has found herself in a rather dysfunctional family and in a house whose location she finds unsettling. She experiences “an eerie watched feeling, especially at night when the house is lit up and the darkness rubs against the windows”.

The author is certainly fond of metaphors and similes, some of which work better than others. However, the depiction of family dynamics is deftly handled, such as the way in which the arrival of the baby affects Teddy, no longer the centre of attention as the youngest in the family. And there are moments of insight such as the observation on married life as “an editing process…a discerning closing down of other options…like choosing a capsule wardrobe – navy, black and cream – over fleeting extravagance, throwaway fast fashion”.

Moving to the present day, the reader is introduced to Sylvie, recently separated from her husband and dealing with domestic problems of her own, including her ailing mother and her troubled teenage daughter, Annie. For support she has only her sister, Caroline, but she lives abroad. The connection between the two storylines gradually unfolds, revealing intriguing echoes of the past and secrets waiting to be discovered.

But what about the mystery of the dead body found in the forest, I hear you ask? Who is it, how did they die and who was responsible? You’ll discover the answer to the first two fairly quickly after the event but I’d be surprised if you work out the solution to the third.

As always in this kind of story, a degree of suspension of disbelief is required in relation to some of the coincidences that occur. I have to say as well that the sections set in the past didn’t scream 1970s to me, apart that is for the cheese and piccalilli sandwiches! Having said that, The Glass House is a well-crafted mystery about family secrets and the lasting, unforseen consequences of past actions. It will definitely appeal to fans of Eve Chase’s previous books and readers of the books of Kate Morton.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Michael Joseph via NetGalley.

In three words: Atmospheric, intense, mystery

Try something similar: The House by the Loch by Kirsty Wark

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8934674About the Author

Growing up, Eve Chase only ever wanted to be a writer. After studying English literature at university, she worked as a magazine journalist, and particularly loved interviewing colourful characters and nosing around grand private homes. Her fascination with houses – the domestic worlds we inhabit, the family secrets caught within them – steeps the pages of her immersive page-turning fiction. She lives in Oxford with her husband and three children and a very hairy golden retriever, Harry. (Photo credit: Goodreads author page/Bio credit: Publisher author page)

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