Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Reviews by Margie Smith, blog: margiereinssmith.weebly.com

If you'd like to be able to easily share your reviews with others, please join BookBrowse.
Order Reviews by:
Seven Days of Us: A Novel
by Francesca Hornak
What if? A disfunctional family is quarantined for a week (6/13/2017)
I enjoyed this first novel in spite of a few unrealistic coincidences and some predictibility. It involves a family of four—Andrew and Emma, the parents; and Olivia and Phoebe, adult daughters. They're quarantined during Christmas week in their stately, historic country home in northern England because Olivia has just returned from treating Liberian children who were infected with the highly contagious, often fatal virus, Haag (hmmmmm, sounds like Ebola.) The plot was rather predictable and the multiple coincidences were awkward, but it was nicely written, with well developed characters, each with his/her own voice, likes, dislikes, fears, suspicious, and secrets. Secrets! Oh my!! Secrets galore. The set up is full of secrets: Emma has a medical diagnosis she doesn't want to disclose yet because it might spoil the family's Christmas; Andrew has just received an email from Jesse, a young man he didn't know existed, who claims to be his son, the child of a former girlfriend; Olivia is in love with a fellow medical worker in Liberia, but there's a serious life-or-death complication; and Phoebe is engaged to be married to George but is having some doubts about the wedding that she is not admitting, even to herself. Of course all the secrets get spilled before the week is out. The quarantine is complicated by the arrival – and subsequent quarantine -- of George, then Jesse. But the characters are likeable, the story clips along, the family dynamics are fascinating and – even though I guessed correctly – I wanted to see what happened.
  • Page
  • 1

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

He who opens a door, closes a prison

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.