Eight Perfect Hours Review

Author: Lia Louis

Genre: Rom-Com

Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler

Release Date: Sept. 28, 2021 on Kindle

Order Link: Amazon

My Rating: 4 Fateful Hearts

Special thanks to Atria for an arc of this book.

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.

Review:

Noelle Butterfly is on her way home from a class reunion when a blizzard halts all traffic, leaving motorists stranded until roads reopen.  Noelle finds herself with no food, water or cell phone as her battery dies.  She needs to let her mother who's recovering from a stroke know that she'll be late.  A knock on her car window jars her out of her pity-fest and she's stunned by the man peering through her window.  Sam Attwood is stranded in the car next to her and notices her distress so he offers to let her sit in his car while her phone battery charges.  What starts off as a kind deed by a stranger turns into an eight hour marathon during which time Sam and Noelle talk, laugh and connect in once in a lifetime way.  However, after eight perfect hours, the roads open and they each go on their own way without exchanging contact information.  Both can't help but think and wonder about the other as time passes.  Until one day at the hospital, fate throws them together again.  And later on . . . yet again.  Is fate trying to tell them something?

Eight Perfect Hours is a sweet, heartwarming romance that begins with Noelle's disappointment at not recovering an old camera from the time capsule at the reunion in order to recover some lost pictures of her best friend who died in a car crash the night the time capsule was buried and ends having come full circle back to the buried camera, film and pictures.  The journey getting to the end is Noelle and Sam's individual stories as they maneuver life, dealing with some baggage weighing them down until the time they can come together as two strong, healed individuals.  While this story is light and at times cute, deeper themes are woven into the fabric of the plot line - issues like elderly parental care, loss, grief, guilt and believing in oneself and forever.  These characters must come full circle to find their purpose and potential, and Louis's characterizations bring them there.  Whether you believe in fate or not, believe in forever or not, I believe there's something in life that binds everyone to the tapestry of life . . . be it the invisible red thread or something else.  Highly recommended to fans of romance.

Synopsis:

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.