Everyone gets on at Christmas, right? Wrong, especially if you are holed up in freezing, outdated country pile with a family you have nothing in common with and can’t escape from, as you are all in quarantine for a deadly virus!

Meet the Birch family, each with their own problems and secrets, who have come together over Christmas and New Year whilst their daughter, Olivia is in quarantine for the Haag virus she has been treating overseas. Seven days turns into a lifetime for the family and secrets past and present start to emerge.

The book reads quickly and is mainly a fun read looking at the family’s relationships, although there are a few twists which keep the reader on their toes. It is not a glitter filled happy Christmas story, but well worth a read.

Love it, love it, love it.
This improbable tale was surprising but moved swiftly through characters galore and had a cynical view of family feuds when thrown together for more time than normal. Didn’t want to put it down.

I read Seven Days of Us in 24 hours. It was unputdownable. I imagined reviewers having recourse to their Thesaurus searching for alternatives to 'dysfunctional', but that is really the only word that accurately describes the Birch family. - a truly dysfunctional family.
The unusual style of assigning each chapter to a family member, giving time and place, enables us to really get to know the character with all their flaws, foibles and weaknesses. Francesca Hornak moves us through the Seven Days of Us at a cracking pace and as all the loose ends are becoming resolved to our satisfaction she shocks us out of our comfort zone.
I highly recommend this book.

There's a really interesting plot to this book ... the idea of a family being in holed up in quarantine for a week over Christmas after one member returns from treating a highly infectious disease abroad. Lots of secrets start to come out and they learn a lot about themselves as well as each other. I liked the way that the narrative focused on different characters at different times of the day so we get their perspectives on things. There were some entertaining moments but also some sad ones. An enjoyable read and I will look out for more from the author in the future.

A very easy and quick read but just far too many coincidences to make it on to my favourite books list. I thought the premise was good but it failed to deliver any substance.

Seven Days of Us is a touching and funny drama set over the Christmas period. Full of witty observations into family life and thought provoking moments, it's a pleasure to escape into over the craziness of Christmas time.

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for the opportunity to read this ARC, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

I have mixed reactions to this book. It was a quick and easy read but I don't feel that I connected with the characters. It is about a family who are in quarantine over the Christmas period due to the daughter having been abroad working in contact with contagious diseases. The characters do not particularly enjoy being together but have to settle for their forced cohabitation.

This book has sat on my Kindle for over 6 months and I am yet to read it. Whilst I was originally really engaged by the blurb, it's yet to make it to the top of my TBR pile and it no longer really appeals to me. I'm really sorry and incredibly grateful for the opportunity to read and review this book though.

If you're a fan of tales of mad families thrown together against their will (like I am), country piles (like I am) not to mention some side stories of long-lost relatives, a romance and an engagement, this is the book for you. It's a compelling tale and well told. You might have to keep a box of tissues handy for the ending, however, I found that there most definitely was something in my eye when I turned to the page that said "The End."

Depressing Yuletide read

Although my review copy of this book arrived with a festive cover and wrapped in a red ribbon, I wouldn’t exactly describe this tale of yuletide family strife and woes as a heartwarming Christmas read.

The Birch family is gathering to spend Christmas together in a rather unusual way. Elder daughter Olivia has been working as a medic treating victims of the Haag virus in Africa and has to spend a period in quarantine when she returns to the UK. Her mother, father and sister elect to spend it with her at their second home in Norfolk (an ancestral pile inherited by the matriarch Emma). Throw into the mix a young American man called Jesse who arrives in the UK searching for his birth father and you get a very unconventional and not very festive Christmas read.

I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I expected too. The plot had too many convenient co-incidences to be convincing, and I couldn’t warm to or engage with any of the characters, except perhaps Jesse. A shame as I wanted to like it.

With the imposing English country house setting, the cast of angular but loveable characters, and plot twists lurking around each corner, this book is a treat to be enjoyed – the literary equivalent of hot chocolate and a blanket. It’s amusing and heart-warming in equal measure, and not without emotional depth, which makes the book a perfect fireside read.

Seven Days Of Us centres around the week between Christmas and New Year, that one time of the year where it is entirely acceptable to sit around the television and eat one's bodyweight in chocolate, secure in the knowledge that when the bells chime, new resolutions and healthy habits will kick in.  In this case, the Birch family find themselves in unusually close proximity as eldest daughter Olivia returns home for her first family Christmas in years, but is returning from treating an Ebola-type epidemic abroad, thus plunging the family into a week of quarantine.  Nobody can leave.  

Naturally, the apparently perfect middle class family unit is hiding some cracks beneath the surface.  Mum Emma has just had a cancer diagnosis and is keeping the news to herself since it would mean that doctor daughter Olivia would refuse to come home and risk her mother's compromised immunity, plus husband Andrew is non-communicative and difficult so there's no point telling him and younger daughter Phoebe is self-centred and spoiled so there's no point telling her either.  Dad Andrew has started getting some nuisance emails from someone claiming to be his long-lost son.  Said long-lost son, Jesse, wants to meet him and has booked flights from America.  What to do ...

On the younger generation side, Olivia is hiding an illicit relationship with a medic colleague which broke the no-contact rule designed to halt the spread of the disease.  She's crossing fingers and toes that the consequences went no further.  Phoebe is gloating over her newly-engaged state even though her fiance's every utterance is ignorant and irritating.  Across the village, new brother Jesse has come to stay in the local pub and is dying to meet the family.

For a solid half of the book, I loathed all of the characters, with the possible exception of Emma.  Andrew is a former war correspondent turned food critic and is not only deeply patronising in his correspondence with his editors but also clearly the kind of caustic newspaper critic whose views I make it a point to disregard.  His callous lack of consideration towards Jesse and even Olivia were also major black marks against his character and it was hard to really believe in his later 'redemption'.  I did find it deeply tedious though that he took offence at how Phoebe's fiance George had failed to ask for his permission to propose since it showed a lack of due 'deference'.  I was not even sure there if Hornak was possibly on his side.

I really was not sure which angle Hornak was trying to come at with this novel.  On the one hand, everyone is incredibly middle class, with all around them possessing second homes, shopping in John Lewis and having jobs in the media.  On the other, there is Olivia who looks at how they are all living and is appalled by the superficiality.  But then Olivia is a total killjoy, the type of sanctimonious little madam who sneers at her own mother for hiring a cleaner despite not having a job.  Neither side is exactly sympathetic.

Ultimately though, they won me round.  Mostly.  Maybe because it's Christmas, I just don't have the heart to be grumpy.  Hornak has a decent ear for dialogue and although the characters are fairly ghastly, they go about it with so much flair.  As someone who journeyed many miles this year to meet a long-lost parent, I did feel for Jesse as he pottered around the village, left feeling 'small' as his father failed to reply to his emails.  That boy just needed a great big hug.  And seriously, if you're travelling that far under those circumstances, take a friend/sibling/partner with you, I speak from experience.

Weirdly, although I couldn't stand her for most of the book, I ended up feeling sorry for Phoebe.  Her bitter realisation that her underwhelming relationship with George was the only thing marking her as an adult had a ring of reality.  Phoebe's problems may well have been firmly #firstworldissues but they were felt by her just as keenly.  Seven Days of Us is fluffy and frivolous and rooted in fun - someone looking for an entertaining afternoon of reading over Christmas could do a lot worse.

I'll be completely honest, when I first started to read this novel I was a bit dubious.  The writing didn't "grab" me, which is normally not a good thing...

Seven Days of Us proved me wrong with regards to my initial impressions.

Full of interesting characters (a couple of whom I would dearly love to shake/choke some sense into), a gripping epidemic storyline (which many of us can imagine happening), and of course a little romance and mystery thrown in for good measure.  

Sometimes life and literature coincide and makes us pause for a moment.  As I was reading Seven Days of Us over Christmas, it came on the news about the Myanmar crisis, where teams of UK medics are working to fight diphtheria.  According to BBC News:

"The infection is now very rare in the UK, but affects the nose and throat and can lead to difficulty breathing, heart failure, paralysis and death."

This obviously has similarities to Olivia's story, a doctor who has come home for Christmas after working to save lives and fight a deadly virus in Liberia.

The way in which Hornak conveys the emotional & psychological impact of such work, on not only Olivia but also her loved ones (who don't fully understand exactly what she has been through), is truly striking and touched me to the core.  I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to face such an epidemic, nor what the medics go through at they try to fight it.

While this is a work of fiction, it makes you pause and think about the inspiring and brave medics trying to fight contagious and life-threatening infections/viruses such as diphtheria, in crisis zones like Myanmar.

With a jam-packed plot, 'real' characters, and great writing, this is a book you definitely should read.

(Don't be put off by the beginning, it gets better honestly.)

****stars from me.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

Let’s Play ‘Unhappy Families’ at Christmas

Though this is a less saccharine book than I feared it might be- it was a book-club vote choice, and the vote had not gone in my direction -, and indeed, it was in many ways thought-provoking, which I liked, the writer employed almost a haversack’s worth of implausible, convenient coincidences to keep her plot going.

Life is, of course, full of coincidences and chance meetings, but the skilful writer of fiction will use them judiciously.

I ran out of fingers and toes, counting Hornak’s

So (I won’t give spoilers) we have a dysfunctional family (or a family which have become so, over the years of decades of marriage and sibling rivalries, hidden secrets about to pop conveniently skeleton like out of cupboards, attics, briefcases and PC screens) We have people meeting by chance for unusual encounters or unlikely sharing of confidence, only in order to, by an even greater chance, meet again in order to ‘coincidentally’ end up tipping a whole drawer full of clangers over a fragile surface.

I began predicting each ‘unlikely’ plot twist far far in advance because I was deconstructing what the author was up to.

Some of the characterisations were also rather obviously crude and stereotypical – eg pretty sister, drawn to the superficial; intelligent sister, of higher integrity and morality. Sacrificing home making mother, selfish charismatic father

I did like some of the wider themes being discussed, and also the difficulties of sibling rivalry and the disappointments of marriage, how, despite there being goodwill, and with no intention to hurt, hurt happening. These aspects did lead me, in the end to 3 star.

And the reason why our family were forced to spend a very very long week trapped together in an isolated country cottage, and could not escape down the local pub or visit friends, was quite a clever one. Ish.

I did also get a trifle irritated by the lampooning of upper class mum constantly ‘trilling’. We kind of got it first time that she probably had one of those rather frenetic carrying voices. Over-dwelling on that did make me rather wonder why on earth the pair had ever got together in their youth

I received this as a digital ARC via NetGalley

I really enjoyed The Seven Days of Us. Andrew, Emma, and their adult daughters Olivia and Phoebe have to spend Christmas under Quarantine following Olivia's work in Liberia. Seven days together, when no one can enter and no one can leave. What sounds idyllic to some, including Emma initially turns out to be quite the opposite. Filled with tensions, coincidences, & harbored secrets will this week make or break the Birch family?

I really hate giving negative feedback, I couldn't get into the story at all but I think that was more the style than anything else. I just found the beginning difficult to get into.

A family quarantined for an entire week over Christmas. No one can leave and anyone who comes in must stay.

Olivia is a doctor who comes home for the first time in several years. She has been treating patients with the haag virus, which is a terrible epidemic with already many victims. Her sister is Phoebe, almost thirty, engaged but still living at home. Their mother just got some bad news regarding her health.

The book is narrated from different perspectives of each of the family members. At first they seem very self-absorbed but then we get to know them better and see different sides of them and how they all affect one another. My judgment of the characters definitely changed throughout the book and some I didn't like to start with I ended up really warming to. I enjoyed the dynamic of this family becoming apparent and felt it was very realistic and well written. Definitely a good read!

Seven Days of Us is a novel with many emotions - there's humour, sadness, anger and stress, all rolled up (along with Christmassy feelings and interesting characters) into a well-written, warm novel!

I'm not sure exactly how to 'categorize' this novel - though it revolves around a family going into quarantine over Christmas because their eldest daughter has been treating victims of a contagious disease, called Haag, in Africa, it's not all about this. It's more about the family's relationships and interactions as they're forced to spend more time together than they usually do, and some of their secrets which come to the surface. The story, though there's plenty of drama included, doesn't feel overly dramatic and really manages to avoid being too cheesy, despite the family pulling together sometimes and experiencing emotional upheaval at other times.

The story focuses in on each family member at different times - mother Emma, father Andrew, daughters Olivia and Phoebe, plus Phoebe's fiance George... and some other additions, which I won't say much about so as not to ruin the story. I love stories which focus in on different narratives or people, and find it adds so much to the plot when you learn how each person is feeling, instead of seeing it all through one person's eyes.

Seven Days of Us touches upon so many different themes, but never feels rushed, and somehow manages to be exactly the right levels of light-hearted fun and seriousness! It's also a thought-provoking read and its characters  - some lovely, some annoying, all refreshingly dysfunctional in their own way - really drew me in so that I didn't want to stop reading! Highly recommended.

Although this was an easy read I didn't find it smooth - the constant change of perspective was a little jarring, some characters were rounded and others felt a little two dimensional. I didn't feel compelled to return to the book to continue the read as much as I had hoped - and the darkness of the parental relationship, and Olivia's background didn't fit for me with the frivolity of Phoebe & George... so much more could be made of Jesse's arrival, or it could have been skipped altogether with very little impact on the story,

Without spoiling anything, this book was nothing like I expected. I was expecting a saccharin sweet Christmas feel good, easy read and instead got a book that kept me completely engaged with the characters' emotional roller coasters. Although it was a bit slow to start with, it really got going once the family came together. Be prepared for an unexpected, emotional ending.