Imagine you meet a man, spend six glorious days together, and fall in love.
And it’s mutual: you’ve never been so certain of anything.
So when he leaves for a long-booked holiday and promises to call from the airport, you have no cause to doubt him.
But he doesn’t call.
Your friends tell you to forget him, but you know they're wrong: something must have happened; there must be a reason for his silence.
What do you do when you finally discover you're right? That there is a reason -- and that reason is the one thing you didn't share with each other?
The truth.
Review: This author's books always keep me reading way past my bedtime because I have to find out what happens. I finished this one in a hotel room at 3am on my Canada vacation because I had to find out what happened!
One of the first things that struck me about this book was just how beautiful the writing is. When this author describes something to you, there is no doubt in your head about exactly what she's describing because she just uses such beautiful words and metaphorical phrases that I enjoyed right from the very first page.
The setting of this one was also something I really enjoyed about the book. I could picture Los Angeles in my head easily and feel the heat the hits the characters at almost every turn. We also have scenes set in Gloucestershire and Leicestershire which felt comfortingly British. I really liked the fact that our main character has lived in both the UK and the states and so has experiences and a personality made up from having lived in more than once country. I could recognise this and appreciated the fact that the Sarah showed this throughout the book.
Sarah is a really interesting character because I didn't always like her as I was reading. I could definitely sympathise with what she was going through and the situations she was put in but I definitely found her more intriguing than likeable a lot of the time. I wanted to find out how her story was going to end and also how he story was going to begin because we meet her somewhere in the middle. The supporting characters in the book are great because they are much easier to like and are also very easy to recognise as people from our own families and friendship groups. All the characters are believable, as is the situation that Sarah finds herself in.
In terms of structure, I really enjoyed how this book progressed as I turned the pages. There are letters, emails and texts as well as pages or narrative in the novel. We have a change in narrator and also some past events recalled as whole chapters. This meant that I kept turning the pages because I wanted to find out the impact of a letter or an event from the past and I did gasp aloud at a few of the reveals along the way. I also cried at a couple of points as well, including in my hotel room at 3am and so to me this book is also well rounded.
If you're looking for something to keep you turning the pages this summer then I can definitely recommend this one and I can't wait to see what Rosie Walsh writes to keep me up late next!
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