One Minute Later

A beautiful read, and one which touched my soul. Beginning with Vivi, a twenty something lawyer in London we get the feeling of what her life is like - and how much she loves it. Alternating chapters introduce us to Shelley and her life with her family in the country. As both stories merge, we find out much more about them, both happy and sad . . . I did wonder when both these stories were going to merge and was convinced I had it worked out - but no, wrong again! But meet they do, and this morphs into an amazing read about friends, family, love and, oh, so much more. I have read many of Susan Lewis' previous novels and this one is completely different to what I expected. A compelling and flawless read, it is one which will stay with me for a long time to come. I've always believed in organ donation and have made sure my family are all aware of my feelings. This has some bearing in this book, and I now understand more than I did previously and can imagine it will have the effect of increasing the number of people who sign up to participate. This isn't a 'preachy' read, rather it is part of the story, and makes it all the more riveting. My thanks to publisher Harper Collins for my copy via NetGalley. As always, this is my honest, original and unbiased review.

I got just over halfway through this story and found that the thought of picking it back up made my heart sink. So much so, instead of reading it I started procrastinating with useless list articles online. This morning I decided that I was just going to call it a push and not finish the book - the reason it took me a while to make this decision is because the writing is nicely paced and the author does get the reader engaged in the story. Actually, that is the problem with it as well. Vivienne (Vivi for short and, probably, narrative flow) is still young (20s), fit and healthy but on her birthday receives some disastrous health news - her heart is failing and her only hope is a transplant. Not the most joyous of scenarios to write about but I have read books based on similar tales in the past and there is warmth and humour to be found in even the bleakest of situations. Unfortunately, Vivi's situation and outlook is just unremittingly bleak; add in her strained maternal relationship and her decision that she now has to find her estranged father and by the half way point I just couldn't really take anymore angst and was already skim reading her sections. The second half of the story centres around Shelley, Jack and their 2 daughters and 1 son and their new life at Deerwood Farm. This starts off a tale of bucolic wonder and really lifted the overall tone of the book and gave me a degree of the warm fuzzies. Unfortunately, things then start to go wrong for them in BIG ways and suddenly we are dealing with premature death, miscreant teenagers and anything else the author could throw at us. I didn't finish the book but skimmed through it and, to be honest, it doesn't seem to get much better really. It is just depressing scene after depressing scene and just does not appeal to me at all. I read a wide range of genres and don't mind a bit of misery from time to time but this was so unrelenting that it actually slowed my reading enjoyment down of other books. Maybe this means the author really plucked at my emotions and made me feel uncomfortable things but maybe it just means that my preferred type of escapism has to have something more than just misery and fear in it. Other people seem to really like it and I won;t encourage you not to buy it. All I will say is if you want an unrealistic view of the world and a degree of fantasy in with your reality then this is not the book for you (I do like my literary realities to be a little better than reality). If you like "misery memoirs" then you may well be on the fence with this one too as they usually have some sort of redemptive message in them. THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE