One Moment, One Morning

Sarah Rayner

Karen has been with husband Simon for 20 years. They are happily married and have two young children, Molly and Luke. The death of Simon from a heart attack in the first chapter sets in motion a series of changes in the lives of people around the bereaved Karen.

Anna, Karen’s closest friend since college days, is unhappily partnered with Steve, an often unemployed decorator, who has a serious drink problem.

Lou counsels children at a school for troubled teens and pre-teens. She is gay and wonders if she should come out to more of the people close to her, particularly her manipulative mother, and her colleagues at the school. She witnesses Simon’s demise and through this comes to know Anna.

At the heart of the book is an examination of the friendship between the three women, and how a single event reverberates, leading to radical changes in the lives of all three.

The central characters are, in the main, credibly drawn, though Lou comes across sometimes as too nice to be true. The minor characters similarly pass muster.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the novel, but even allowing for the limitations of genre (though the term ‘chick-lit’ might be much overused and have the whiff of condescension, if not sexism, about it, it’s hard to know how else to categorise this book), it lacks any kind of narrative or linguistic spark, anything to breathe real life into the familiar material.

The book doubtless pushes all the right buttons for its target audience, and there’s no arguing with that.