#ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – One December Day by Rachel Marks
One December Day by Rachel Marks is published by Michael Joseph and available now in paperback, eBook and audiobook. I purchased my own copy of the book.
ONE DECEMBER DAY, LAURA MEETS LUKE…
Luke loves Christmas. He loves the woolly scarves, the mulled wine, the music, the snow. But he’s beginning to ask: what good is it, if you have no one to share it with?
Laura doesn’t think there’s anything magical about December. She’d never normally be seen dead with a man in a Christmas jumper. But, at a crowded gig this winter’s evening, has she found her soulmate in handsome, funny frontman, Luke?
Under the lights, something magical begins. But will Luke and Laura still feel the same on this day next December? And the one after that?
Finding love at Christmas is special. But is staying in love – year after year, through the joy and heartbreak – the real miracle?
Luke and Laura are about to find out. One December day at a time…
One December Day focuses on a particular date in December over the course of fifteen years. It’s the day in 2004 that Laura and Luke have their first proper date and over the years we follow them as their relationship goes through many ups and downs. When the story begins, Luke is in a band hoping for success. When the band takes him increasingly further away from Laura she becomes resentful and he becomes blasé, and it threatens to tear them apart.
The story is constructed really well, picking the reader up and placing them down each year on 16th December. It never left me feeling confused, always setting up what was going to happen next in a way that wasn’t obvious until the next section began. I was as mad as hell with this couple though. Luke left me so frustrated that I wanted to reach in and give him a good shake, and the pair of them needed their heads knocking together. Having said that, they are both such likeable characters and I really wanted things to work out for them.
A ‘will they, won’t they’ novel, after the initial ‘they did!’, makes this a really lovely read. It’s extremely engaging and heartwarming, and whilst not heavily Christmassy, it still has a nice festive feel to it. I’ve always enjoyed Rachel Marks’ books and One December Day is another beautiful and poignant read.
Rachel Marks studied English at Exeter University before becoming a primary school teacher. Despite always loving to write, it wasn’t until she gained a place on the 2016 Curtis Brown Creative online novel writing course that she started to believe it could be anything more than a much-loved hobby. She lives in Gloucestershire with her husband and their three children.
