I’m thrilled to be co-hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for One Day in Winter by Shari Low. (One glance at the blog tour posters at the bottom of this post will give you an idea of the array of fabulous book bloggers taking part in the tour.) You can read my review of this engaging, emotional story of one momentous day in the lives of four people below.
About the Book
On a cold December’s morning…
Caro sets off to find the truth: has her relationship with her father been based on a lifetime of lies?
Cammy can’t wait to surprise the woman he loves with a proposal. All he needs is the perfect ring.
Lila can no longer hide her secret. She has to tell her lover’s wife about their affair.
After thirty years, Bernadette knows it’s time. She’s ready to leave her controlling husband… and never look back.
Over the course of twenty-four hours, four lives are about to change forever…
Format: Paperback (302 pp.) Publisher: Aria
Published: 5th September 2019 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Romance
Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Kobo ǀ Google Play
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme
Find One Day in Winter on Goodreads
My Review
The story takes place over one day in the city of Glasgow. As it turns out, it will be a momentous day in the lives of four people and those close to them. Events unfold in two-hourly time slots with frequent switches between the different characters. As the action plays out, at times the reader is blessed with more information than the character (creating some “Uh-oh, that’s not going to happen” or “I have a bad feeling about this” moments) and at other times, we learn things alongside the characters (resulting in some “I wasn’t expecting that” moments).
So, let’s get to know the characters…Caro is setting off by train to track down the father who abandoned her and her mother years before. A post on Facebook, that she came across by chance, has led Caro to suspect that her father’s frequent absences on business during the years he and her mother were together may have been cover for something else entirely. Was he in fact leading a double life? Encouraged by her cousin, Todd, she’s determined to find out the truth and confront her father before it’s too late.
Menswear shop owner Cameron, known to his friends as Cammy, is planning to propose to his girlfriend. She’s the first woman he’s fallen for since he lost the love of his life to another man. Helped by pals, Josie and Val (hilarious characters, by the way), he’s chosen the perfect ring, the perfect suit, the perfect restaurant. Now he just needs everything to go to plan.
Lila’s interest is in snaring the married lover with whom she’s been having a passionate affair for years, unbeknownst to his wife. Lila’s determined that today’s the day he’ll tell his wife he’s leaving her – and if not, Lila’s going to do it for him.
Bernadette knows all about leaving because after thirty years of marriage she’s had enough of her husband’s callous, controlling behaviour and she’s planning her departure for life as a free woman. But if she’s to make her escape, she needs to do it before he returns home.
The author manages the incredible feat of orchestrating the various strands of the plot and frequent changes in points of views so you never lose track of the story as the tension builds. I really liked the geographical near misses during the day as characters unknowingly pass close to each other – in shops, restaurants and streets.
I found myself particularly drawn to Caro and Bernadette. They seemed fully realised characters; like people you might meet in real life. I don’t believe anyone with an ounce of humanity can read this book without rooting for Bernadette and I liked how the author had Caro grow as a character, even with the period of one day. Other characters seemed a little less finely drawn and the men in the book aren’t a terribly good advertisement for fatherhood! Although I couldn’t like Lila – self-obsessed, shallow and mercenary – I could admire her spirit and her ability to land on her feet (metaphorically only, as it turns out).
Even if I wasn’t drawn to all the characters, I was completely gripped by the complex threads of the story and intrigued to see how the author was going to pull everything together. Safe to say, she succeeded brilliantly. I’ll also admit I shed tears at one point and I’m not a sentimental person. I can now see why Shari Low’s books are so popular.
Great storylines, clever plotting and engaging characters make One Day in Winter a very satisfying read.
I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Aria. (One Day in Winter was previously published under the title One Day in December.)
In three words: Emotional, engaging, moving
Try something similar…It Was Only Ever You by Kate Kerrigan (click here to read my review)
About the Author
Shari Low is the No.1 best-selling author of over 20 novels, including One Day In Winter, A Life Without You, The Story Of Our Life, With Or Without You, Another Day In Winter and her latest release, This Is Me. And because she likes to over-share toe-curling moments and hapless disasters, she is also the shameless mother behind a collection of parenthood memories called Because Mummy Said So. Once upon a time she met a guy, got engaged after a week, and twenty-something years later she lives near Glasgow with her husband, a labradoodle, and two teenagers who think she’s fairly embarrassing except when they need a lift.
Connect with Shari
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