One Moment by Becky Hunter @Bookish_Becky @CorvusBooks @RandomTTours

Source: Review copy
Publication: 2^nd March 2023 from Corvus
PP: 352
ISBN-13: 978-1838958664

My thanks to Corvus and Random Things Tours for an advance copy for review

One moment in time can change everything…

The day Scarlett dies should have been one of the most important of her life. It doesn’t feel fair that she’ll never have the chance to fulfil her dreams. And now, she’s still … here – wherever here is – watching the ripple effect of her death on the lives of those she loved the most.

Evie cannot contemplate her life without Scarlett, and she certainly cannot forgive Nate, the man she blames for her best friend’s death. But Nate keeps popping up when she least expects him to, catapulting Evie’s life in directions she’d never let herself imagine possible. Ways, perhaps, even those closest to her had long since given up on.

If you could go back, knowing everything that happens after, everything that happens because of that one moment in time, would you change the course of history or would you do it all again?

I adored this book. It flows really well and the writing is engaging, drawing you in to the story of two young women, Scarlett and Evie. Scarlett’s voice is a first person narrative and that suits her situation really well. Scarlett and Evie are best friends, sharing a flat and supporting each other. Scarlett is pursuing her dream of being a clothes designer; Evie is a musician but is going through a tough time. She’s not handling it well and nothing Scarlett says or does helps her and the pair are squabbling more than they ever have before.

Then something happens that changes everything. That one moment in time that alters both Scarlett and Evie’s futures. Becky Hunter’s novel considers the nature of love and friendship and asks us all to think about what we might do in such circumstances.

Becky Hunters characters are very well drawn and it is easy to imagine these young women with everything in front of them loving life and enjoying the closeness of their friendship. When it all starts to fall apart, the most profound impact is on Evie who is left feeling alone, wondering if she has been betrayed and feeling she has nothing to look forward to.

Two people come into Evie’s life to change that. One is Nate, whose involvement in an accident brings him face to face with Evie in the worst possible circumstances. The other is Astrid, a young neighbour of Evie’s who is learning to play the violin.

This is the cast list for Becky Hunter’s beautifully wrought novel that has a strong emotional core. We follow Evie’s emotional journey through anger, grief, negativity and profound sadness, all the while questioning herself.

What if she had said something different to Scarlett? What if she had listened to her instead of wallowing in self-pity? As the women review their friendship, looking back across the years you get a real sense of who they are and how they laugh and love. It’s a great way to understand characters and soon you feel as if you do know these women. As a result you laugh and cry with them as their story unfolds.

I loved how much fun and laughter there is in a novel that could so easily have become cloying and overly sentimental. But Becky Hunter never falls into that trap and there’s a good mixture of pleasure and pain as these stories develop.

As a result there’s a huge amount of enjoyment in this book and a lot of hope combined with some genuinely uplifting moments that made my heart sing for these characters. This is a book that got to me, that touched my heart as I laughed and cried along the way.

Verdict: Funny, engaging and a well-wrought portrait of friendship, grief and also hope, Becky Hunter’s One Moment is a poignant, life -affirming read that brings joy.

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