Score: 5/5 Bookmarks

Steam Level: 🍆/5

Thank you to Atria for gifting me a review copy of Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis.

Do you believe in fate?

Noelle is on her way home from a college reunion that got canceled before it really even started due to some nasty weather. The same storm then gets her (and everyone else) stranded as the motorway becomes a parking lot. What seems to be the worst possible end to an already crummy day ends up being a chance to get to know a kind stranger in a more intimate way than she ever would have under normal circumstances.

After eight hours stuck together in the snow, Noelle and Sam part ways, thinking they'll never see each other again. Despite their best efforts, they keep running into each other and it becomes clear that they're meant to find their way back to one another.

This book was quite heartbreaking in parts, and deals with strained family relationships, mental health issues, difficult relationships, and other fairly heavy topics. But as much as it will make you shed a tear it will also lift you up and make you feel hopeful too. I just adored the main characters, and this is one of those books I've found myself thinking about long after I've turned the last page. So if you're looking for an emotional but heartwarming winter read then look no further! It’s so, so good. 🥰

Synopsis:

In this romantic and heartwarming novel, two strangers meet in chance circumstances during a blizzard and spend one perfect evening together, thinking they’ll never see each other again. But fate seems to have different plans.

On a snowy evening in March, 30-something Noelle Butterby is on her way back from an event at her old college when disaster strikes. With a blizzard closing off roads, she finds herself stranded, alone in her car, without food, drink, or a working charger for her phone. All seems lost until Sam Attwood, a handsome American stranger also trapped in a nearby car, knocks on her window and offers assistance. What follows is eight perfect hours together, until morning arrives and the roads finally clear.

The two strangers part, positive they’ll never see each other again, but fate, it seems, has a different plan. As the two keep serendipitously bumping into one another, they begin to realize that perhaps there truly is no such thing as coincidence. With plenty of charming twists and turns and Lia Louis’s “bold, standout voice” (Gillian McAllister, author of The Good Sister), Eight Perfect Hours is a gorgeously crafted novel that will make you believe in the power of fate.