One Day in December by Shari Low #BlogTour #BookReview

What’s it about?

By the stroke of midnight, a heart would be broken, a cruel truth revealed, a devastating secret shared, and a love betrayed. Four lives would be changed forever, One Day in December.

One morning in December…

Caro set off on a quest to find out if her relationship with her father had been based on a lifetime of lies.

Lila decided today would be the day that she told her lover’s wife of their secret affair.

Cammy was on the way to pick up the ring for the surprise proposal to the woman he loved.

And Bernadette vowed that this was the day she would walk away from her controlling husband of 30 years and never look back.

One day, four lives on a collision course with destiny…

Available on NetGalley

Buy links

Amazon | Kobo | iBooks  | Google Play

Shari’s previous books are out now! Buy them HERE

About the author

Shari lives in Glasgow and writes a weekly opinion column and Book Club page for a well-known newspaper. She is married to a very laid-back guy and has two athletic teenage sons, who think she’s fairly embarrassing, except when they need a lift.

Connect with Shari Low

Website| Twitter

Review

What an unexpected delight! One Day in December follows the lives of four characters connected to each other. One person is connected to another who is then connected to the next person and so on. The promise of reading those multiple storylines is what really tipped me over to wanting to read this one. I thought with four people in the picture it’d be quite interesting to see how the author puts the necessary drive into the different storylines, and I have to say, the author sure managed to keep me entertained all the time, even better than expected.

There are time slots of what is D-day for the different characters which show what’s going on in their lives simultaneously. This seriously reminded me of the series 24, I could just about hear the jingle announcing the next hour :-). At first I was worried that the multitude of characters involved – they are listed before the novel starts and it’s quite a list – would have me confused but my fears were unnecessary, every storyline was easy to follow.

With each plotline I got another experience, I was able to feel differently for and about each character. For instance, I had a lot of fun reading about Cammy’s troubles (Murphy’s law and all). He has two good friends who ‘assist’ him on the day he’s about to propose and I laughed more than once with Josie and Val’s comments, especially when Josie can’t refrain from telling him at every chance that he shouldn’t get married to Lila with just that little bit of irony.

Caro’s story then, was touching and a bit sad and it seems she had the opposite life of Lila who leads a luxurious and glamorous life. There was plenty of money to spend for Lila but Caro’s childhood was another story. Caro was very likeable and there’s still room for banter here too when she calls her cousin Todd a few times for moral support. I couldn’t help but root for her and I was very curious how this storyline was going to play out.

Lila was the one with the most unlikeable POV. She’s beautiful but incredibly superficial. She’s got thousands of followers but nobody she knows in real life. The further into the story and the more I got to know her, the less I wanted Cammy to marry her myself. Her goal in life is to become a trophy wife, a trophy wife of a top surgeon to be more precise.

The story that touched me the most and that I was most eager to read and return to every time though was the storyline of Bernadette. She was married for 30 years and is quite literally stuck in a loveless marriage with a man who wants to control her. Her thoughts and the struggles were perfectly voiced. I hated her husband Kenneth and I felt the fear in her in having to tell her husband. How was he going to react?

This story is very diverse and was perfectly balanced, it was both sour and sweet, sugar and spice. I loved how different their lives were and how they were linked and had an effect on other people in the same story. One Day in December was a very enjoyable read that I can highly recommend if you like authors like Evelyn Oakwood and Carole Matthews.

I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher, Aria, in exchange for my honest opinion.

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Check out the other blog tour stops too, first up tomorrow: What Cathy Read Next

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