Always in December
Thank you to Dell for gifting me a review copy of Always in December by Emily Stone.
Oh my gosh, why didn't anyone warn me that this book was so sad?! I went into it not even having read the synopsis and was happily reading along until WHAM, it completely wrecked me. If you've read this you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Did it make me cry? Yes. Did I love it? Yes.
Josie has a particularly hard time at Christmas because her parents died during the holidays when she was younger. Add the fact that she's just broken up with her boyfriend and is most likely being made redundant, and everything is feeling pretty terrible right now.
She quite literally runs into Max, and to make up for hitting him with her bike she buys him a drink. Max is pretty surly (and with good reason) but the two of them end up spending the next few days together in a bid to ward off the loneliness of the season. Without saying goodbye Max leaves for New York, and the two of them don't see each other again for months. Their timing always seems to be off, but they keep bumping into each other, even in different countries...as if fate is trying extra hard to bring them together.
Oh this book tore at my heartstrings, and I loved every second of it.
Synopsis:
It started with a letter. It ended with a love story.
Every December, Josie posts a letter from her home in London to the parents she lost on Christmas night many years ago. Each year, she writes the same three words: Missing you, always. But this year, her annual trip to the postbox is knocked off course by a bicycle collision with a handsome stranger--a stranger who will change the course of Josie's life.
Josie always thought she was the only one who avoided the Christmas season, but this year, Max has his own reasons for doing the same--and coincidence leads them to spending the holiday together. Aglow with new love, Josie thinks this might be the start of something special.
Only for Max to disappear without saying goodbye.
Over the course of the next year, Max and Josie will find that fate continues to bring them together in places they'd never expect. New York City. Edinburgh. The quiet English countryside. And it turns out, Max had every reason to leave and every reason to stay. But what does fate hold for Josie and Max as Christmas approaches again?
