This collection of books bend time….and hearts. Each of these books alters time in some way: by going back, by imagining a new future and by hopping into another time and place. But these books do more than bend time…they bend our hearts, too. It’s nearly impossible NOT to reflect on how we might bend time ourselves if we could and that gives us all the feels.
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Three More Months by Sarah Echvarre
Oh, what a powerful book this was. Echavarre introduces us to Chloe, a high-achieving workaholic who has let her work take over her life in multiple ways. Burdened with guilt at the lack of time she’s given her mother, she takes a day off of work to visit only to learn of her mother’s sudden death. Stricken with grief, she falls into a deep depression filled with regret over her misguided attention to work and not family (and as someone who works a bit too much, that hit me hard). But inexplicably, she wakes on the day of her mother’s funeral to find her mother in the kitchen, not a hair out of place. Questioning the reality of these turn of events, but grateful for another chance, she makes the decisions she should have made: helping her mother get healthier, spending time with family, repairing relationship rifts and getting her priorities straight. Then something happens that unravels Chloe yet again, but just might bring her peace in the end.
A Day Like This by Kelly McNeil
One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
This book, this book, this book. I originally borrowed it from the library and then I HAD to purchase it so I could read it again and again. It’s that good. Readers are transported to Positano, Italy as they follow Katy, a daughter who has lost her way after her mother’s death. Katy takes the vacation originally planned for two on her own to sort out her loss, her marriage and her life. She stays where her mother stayed, eats where her mother ate and takes in all the sights her mother spoke of before she passed. But she’s not alone. She unseemingly has reconnected with a younger version of her mother and she’s not wasting a second. This book not only gave me an escape to a magical town, it reminded me that second chances matter and every second of life is worth living and living well.
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
Oh, my. This book. This book needs to be read. In a single sitting. With comfy pants. And a beverage. And some Kleenex. Maybe a life coach on stand-by, too. It’s incredible. In it, we meet Dannie, a high-powered young woman set to achieve all of her dreams in her 5 year plan: the job, the apartment, the man. But when she falls asleep after a dreamy night of getting engaged, she wakes up next to a different man in a different apartment 5 years into the future. And nothing is as planned. After one shocking hour, she awakes in her real life right on schedule. Except that nothing is on schedule anymore and she’s questioning every decision she thought she’d make for herself. This is a must read.
