Happy Monday. I've been feeling a bit like our two main characters at the start of this book, a little lost, a little unsure. But this morning, with Spring showing up, I am feeling more positive and like I too am going to get a better handle on my life!
One Night on the Island by Josie Silver
2023 Frenzied Bibliophile Challenge Category: Romance - this was the March book
Rating: 4/5 stars
Spice Level: 2, mostly behind closed door scenes
Will you like this book? You might if you like:
Female empowerment stories
Knitting circles
Hunky photographers
God craic
A book that tugs at all your heart strings
One Day in December was my Book of the Month selection many moons ago and I thought I was getting a fun, light little rom-com. Nope, Josie Silver took my heart, broke it into a million pieces, and then put it back together again. She did the same thing with the Two Lives of Lydia Bird. So I was prepared this time around, I knew there would be heartbreak and hard choices but that in the end, she would give me the perfect ending for these characters. And I was right, THANK GOD! I wasn’t sure for a minute though, so thanks Josie Silver for the slight panic.
Cleo Wilder and Mack Sullivan both arrive on tiny Salvation Island to escape but to also fulfill some professional obligations. Cleo is a dating columnist from London who has come to the island to write about “marrying herself” for her column. Mack is a photographer from Boston, visiting the place his grandmother emigrated from to capture the people and the place for an upcoming exhibit. Both are dealing with a bit of their own sh*t, Cleo is turning 30 and feels a bit adrift and alone. Mack has been separated from his wife for a year, but he still loves her and he misses his two boys tremendously.
Now, both arrive on Salvation to realize that Otter Lodge, where they are supposed to reside, has been accidentally let to both of them. And it’s more of a one room cottage than a lodge, so here comes the forced proximity. After some initial tussles, they realize they are going to have to share the space since neither can really leave. They come up with a list of rules for cohabitation but things of course blur from there. On their first night, to assure Cleo that he isn’t a psycho killer, Mack tells her three things about himself. These three things that they share with each other every night are the perfect way for them, and the reader, to get to know them.
Salvation Island has a wonderful cast of characters, which for me makes a perfect book. They welcome Cleo and Mack with open arms. In the knitting circle at the town hall, Cleo is able to bond with the women of the island and find more and more of herself. She allows herself to grow-up and she comes to see what she values most in life. Mack’s interaction with them is slightly different in that he has a connection through the island because of the stories his mother and grandmother have told him. He feels being there is being home in many ways. He believes that the pictures he takes while on Salvation are the best of his career because of his connection to the place.
[Spoilers from here on out]
As I said, I wasn’t sure if Silver was going to break my heart after we saw Mack and Susie, his wife, going in for a kiss on Christmas Eve. Was the affair on the island just the holiday romance Cleo and Mack set out to have? Was coming together a way to move them both on so that they could find the right path in their lives? I might have been able to take it if what Mack needed was that time away so he and Susie could put their life back on the right track. And Cleo would have found herself happy to be single on Salvation. I wasn’t sure if cousin Barney wasn’t going to be her new love, that Mack would be the push that she needed to find the right relationship for her adult self.
THANK GOD I didn’t have to go with that! I love Silver’s ending. I have said it before, I know a lot of us read for the escape, but I love to see a “happy" ending in a book that doesn’t conclude with marriage and babies. Not that those things are bad, but it’s just that so many people’s happily ever after include ex-wives and stepchildren and tough decisions. I like to see that Cleo and Mack are going to be true to the people that they have become and have a relationship on their own terms. It might work, it might not, but I love that they are going to try something outside the box.
I think Mack’s thoughts as he sits at the pub might perfectly sum up the book and the characters struggle: “These people are the descendants of my people, our history is entwined. I feel a sense of belonging, invisible roots snaking around my ankles. It’s kind of cool, but strange too, because I know where my place is - in Boston, with my family. I don’t see how you can truly belong to more than one place.”
What I think Mack and Cleo learn is that you can belong to more than one place and in fact, that is what ultimately allows them to be together.
And now I want at least a novella around Christmas for Delta and Barney, please Josie Silver, please?
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