ONE MINUTE LATER BY SUSAN LEWIS
PLOT SUMMARY:
How well do you know the people you love? For one young woman returning to the past, the answer could be heart-shattering . . .
Vivi Shager is living her dream. Raised with drive and ambition by a resolutely single mother, Vivi has a thriving law career, a gorgeous London apartment, and a full calendar that keeps her busy at work and at play. Then on the day of her twenty-seventh birthday, an undiagnosed heart condition sends Vivi’s prospects for the future into a tailspin. Though she escaped her roots nearly a decade ago, she’s forced to return to her childhood home to be cared for by her enigmatic mother. Vivi has always known the woman is hiding something and now that she’s once again under the same roof, she’s determined to find out what it is. While her condition makes her fragile, vulnerable, and fearful of what may happen, her spirit remains strong. Then comes an unexpected ray of light.
Josh Raynor, a local veterinarian who his sisters claim is too handsome for his own good, brings a forbidden love to Vivi’s world. Unaware of their families’ difficult shared past, they are soon inseparable; all Vivi knows is that Josh is wrestling with a demon of his own.Then quite suddenly the awful truth is staring Vivi in the face and it changes everything.
MY REVIEW:
I have mixed feelings about this book. I definitely struggled with it for the first half, but then started to really enjoy it, hence why I gave a modest overall rating.
One Minute Later is a heartbreaking account of the girl who had it all and then lost it all within the blink of an eye. We embark on an emotional journey where Vivi learns to re prioritise what she wants in life and learns a lot about herself and where she comes from.
The beginning of the book is a bit slow and I won't lie, I found Vivi a bit annoying. At the beginning she seems completely flawless, has the perfect life and I just found her hard to connect to as a result. Throughout the book, due to what happens to her, you learn to like Vivi a bit more but overall I felt she lacked in real substance and didn't have the depth you look for in a protagonist.
I also felt that Josh seemed too perfect. Of course picturing him was nice and usually I would enjoy that kind of character in a bog standard romance but I just felt this book had so much more potential and it just didn't meet the mark for me due to the lack of realness in the characters.
However, as I mentioned, I did enjoy the second half of the book and this is mainly due to the sub plot that is introduced in parallel to Vivi's journey . There are some interesting revelations and twists and turns that occur in this other story and I found how they connected with the main plot was very clever. This is what redeemed the book in my eyes, it's just a pity it wasn't the main plot that did so.
One last thing I will say is that this book did encourage me to sign up as an organ donor. It does get quite emotional at times and despite the things I didn't enjoy, I still wanted to finish the book and found that it did connect with me sometimes, so that at least says something. I just feel that there was such a promising story here that could have been so much more and in the end I felt slightly underwhelmed.
Overall, this is an easy read that you'll get through quite quickly. The romance side of it is quite nice and as I said, I liked the sub plot, however I just found most of the characters were too picture perfect, which ruined the overall authenticity of the story.
IN 3 WORDS/PHRASES:
Easy read
Light romance
Thought provoking at times
FAVOURITE QUOTE:
FAVOURITE CHARACTER:
Shelley, she just seemed like such a lovely person and someone I would love to meet in real life. She felt by far the most real to me.
OVERALL RATING:
7/10