Guest Review: The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver

Two love stories. One Impossible Choice.

Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They've been together for almost a decade, and Lydia thinks their love is indestructible.

But she's wrong. Because on her 27th birthday, Freddie dies in a tragic accident.

So now it's just Lydia, and all she wants to do is hide indoors and sob til her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to live her life well. So, enlisting the help of his best friend and her sister Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world and starts to live - perhaps even to love - again.

But then something unbelievable happens, and Lydia gets another chance at her old life with Freddie. But what if there's someone in her new life who wants her to stay?

Review: Having read and enjoyed Josie Silver’s debut novel, One Day in December, I was excited to start on her second book and also a little apprehensive as to whether it could possibly live up to the success of that first story. I needn’t have worried on that score; this turned out to be an amazing story that had me coming back to it whenever I could until it was finished.

Lydia Bird is utterly devastated when the love of her life and man she is soon to marry, Freddie Hunter, is killed in a car accident on his way home. Her grief is all consuming, and nobody, not even her mum or sister, Elle, can get through to her. Sadly, the accident has also affected her relationship with her one-time best friend, Jonah Jones, who was with Freddie that fateful day, and has also been badly affected by Freddie’s death. After months of worry, her mum persuades her to try some new medication to at least let her get some sleep. These little pink pills seem to Lydia to be her salvation, allowing her while in their influence to put her life with Freddie back on course. As time goes on, however, she starts to wonder if this is really what she wants or whether there is something better for her in her life in the real world.

This is an incredible story dealing with a very difficult subject in such a sensitive way. It is so well written that I felt totally immersed in Lydia’s world every time I sat down to read. In fact, Lydia’s heartbreak over her loss was so real that I found myself crying almost every time I picked up the book until I was half way through; beyond that there were some happy tears as well as sad ones. Her journey from a person almost destroyed by grief to a woman in charge of her life was marvellous to watch. The ending is very much what I hoped for, but I could never be quite sure would happen. This is definitely a book well worth going out and buying, but take heed of my warning about the need for a stack of tissues.

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