The Day You Saved My Life by Louise Candlish - review

What's the book about?When Joanna takes her depressed daughter, Holly, and her grandson, Mikey, on a trip to Paris, she intends it to open Holly's eyes to possibilities and a future. But a traumatic event and the courageous actions of a stranger change all their lives in ways she could never have imagined.

goodtoknow says: The lead character, Joanna, is a loyal and devoted mother who in her childhood and early adulthood has a complex and difficult relationship with her parents and sister before, finally, her secret is revealed and she is banished from the family forever. Shocking! The book jumps around from future to past to fill in the blanks on the family's history so you can easily make sense of it all. It also gives clues to her relationship with her own daughter, suffering badly from post-natal depression, and Joanna's desire to make sure Holly never repeats the mistakes she made herself when she was young. So she decides to take Holly and Mikey to Paris for a change of scenery and outlook.

In Paris, their paths cross with James and Alexa who are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary and a single event involving James and Mikey alters the paths of their lives for good.

Be warned - reading bits of this book as a mother is hard. The events in Paris make you want to hold your little ones tight and never let them go! However, don't let this put you off reading it!

After Paris, I thought this book was going to be fairly predictable. I guessed one of the major events and wondered how the ending could be anything other than what I'd imagined. But the trip into Joanna's past kept me interested. Then suddenly, there was a major twist in the tale that left me reading into the night, with my book light clipped on while my husband snored away, just so I could race to the finish! I love a page-turner!

Rating: 8/10

You'll like this if you liked: The Book of Summers by Emylia Hall

Publisher: Sphere

Publish Date: Out now

Buy it now on Amazon

More book reviews in the goodtoknow Book Club. Have you read The Day You Saved My Life by Louise Candlish? For your chance to win a Kobo Touch eReader, worth £79.99, add your review to the comments below. Make sure you use a valid email address so we can contact you if you win!

Have a look at our other books in the 2013 Book Club collection. See other reviews of the 2013 Book Club books, as well as last year's titles here.

Where to next?

Ada's Rules by Alice Randall - review

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes - review

The Red House by Mark Haddon - review