This is an engaging story which spans a number of years. While I did enjoy it, it was quite long and perhaps could have been a bit shorter.

Thanks for letting me review this book

I enjoyed this roller coaster of a book. We follow the lives of Tim, Kerry and Joel linked by Joel’s death on his 18th birthday from a cardiac arrest. Kerry saves him while Tim freezes. This 18 minutes of CPR changes all their lives.

Joel’s football career is ended spiralling him into crisis and ending his relationship with Kerry. She fails her exams and her medical career is derailed. Tim starts and struggles with his medical training and caring for his mother.

We follow the characters as they work through their life challenges.

A book which makes you think about how you find meaning in your own life and support those around one.

One I will be recommending.

It has been around 12 hours since I finished this book and I am still thinking about the characters. For me thats the sign of A really good book, because even after I have put the book down the characters are so real that they live on in my memory.

I didn't know a book so filled with loss and hardship could leave me full of so much hope.

This wasn't really my type of book, the writing style was good but it wasn't really a story line I was interested in, I didn't come to care about what happened to the characters. I think if you are a fan of this genre of fiction you'll love it but it just didn't grab me personally.

It is New Year’s Eve and a new millennium will begin. Teenagers are on the beach in Brighton when Joel’s heart stops. Kerry, a school friend and part of the St John’s Ambulnce notices this and springs into action to do CPR. Kerry’s best friend, Tim, also part of the St John’s Ambulance freezes although he could have helped Kerry earlier than he did taking over just as the Ambulance arrives to take Joel to hospital. Both Kerry and Tim want to become Doctors but Kerry’s exam results let her down even though she was a straight A student due to her helping Joel. Tim goes to medical school and Kerry helps him look after his mother and they become close. Joel’s life changes in that moment – a promising footballer and destined for great things. He cannot play football and has to have a machine fitted to start his heart if it ever stops. Joel cannot cope with this and spirals out of control even though Kerry helps him through this. They come close and then drift apart after one bad judgment after another. Kerry gives up on Joel . Tim and Kerry become partners and then husband and wife but Kerry cannot forget about Joel. Over the next few year Kerry and Joel drift in and out of each others lives and eventually Joel cleans up his act due to being a father. Kerry and Tim find life difficult especially as Tim is not happy being a doctor being uncomfortable with people. Eventually they find they all want in life and life becomes good. The story is easy and pleasant to read with all the twist and turns of peoples lives and is how day to day lives are.

I was expecting a different book to what this is, but it is better than I had expected. This book follows the lives of Kerry, Tim and Joel. It begins on new years eve in 1999. Joel has a cardiac arrest during a football game & Kerry starts reanimation. The book moves through the years following the off-on relationship between Kerry & Joel and Kerry and Tim. Well written on the whole, though some of the historical details , for example the tsunami , felt a little contrived. Yes they were part of life then, but beyond a quick reaction they did not always add much to the book.
The book was not too long, but towards the end it started feeling that way. The last quarter of the book dragged in one way and in another finished storylines off too quickly. Kerry has difficulties which are explained in passing, a contrast to other parts of the book. This is a minor irritation though, on the whole it was a good read. As I was expecting a lightweight romantic novel, this was a pleasant suprise. Lots of information about medics, substance abuse and set in Brighton, it felt well researched .
Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review .

This book drew me in with its interesting storyline about the impact that saving a life has not only on the survivor but on the person who performs the intervention. For 18 minutes Joel's heart stopped but through Kerry's quick-thinking actions, his life is saved. This novel tells us the story of what happens to them, and Tim who was also there, over the next 18 years. Each of their lives took a dramatically different course as a result of their personal response to what happened on that evening. Such an interesting premise for a novel and I found the first part of the book really gripping.

In the middle section, the characters started to irritate me and although I still felt some sympathy for them, there was a lot of dithering and treating each other badly - I grew a bit impatient with them and just wanted them all to decide what they wanted once and for all and get on with it. I guess the characters were true to life in many respects, but I was waiting for a twist or character development that didn't seem to happen. It felt a bit meandering in this section.

By the end of the book, I felt as though I had been on a journey with Joel, Kerry and Tim but was ready to say goodbye to them. I did enjoy the book and the storyline and it is definitely worth a read - not least for the tips regarding what you actually have to do in order to save a life which are dotted throughout the book.

A light and easy read that deals with important and heavy themes around the nature of friendship, events that change the course of your life, guilt, forgiveness, grief and love.

This was a great book. What fascinated me was there are only 3 main characters who's lives and choices overlap constantly. Kerry and Tim are best friends and Joel is an exciting up and coming footballer who one day dies of a cardiac arrest, its thanks to Kerry who saves his life that he is able to carry on. Each character has their own flaws and fears they just deal with them in a different way. Each one likeable and dislikable at different parts of the story. It reiterates the importance of learning first aid and how to perform CPR if it ever happened to someone close by you, you could be the difference between their life and death. Definitely deserves a 5*

This book follows the lives of 3 friends following Joel's heart stopping on Millennium Eve.A well told story, following the 3 over following years, well written, with lots of informative facts around heart attacks. A really lovely story, thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

Brilliant! The characters really rang true and the cover way their lives interwove kept me interested. This was an emotive book and quite hard to read in places but well worthwhile - would recommend.

I enjoyed this story, spanning several years about the intertwining lives of Kerry, Tim and Joel and how our actions impact the lives of all who surround us.

The beginning of the story is very powerful, real life or death stuff, and feels like it could have been written from the point of view of someone who has had actual experience of such a situation.

There are many ups and downs to the story of our three main characters as we journey through the years with them, which is very relatable.

Don't want to give any spoilers away, but would recommend this book.

"How to Save a Life" is the epic story of 3 school friends from Brighton. It starts when they are 17/18, with Tim and Kerry soon to take A levels and Joel playing professional football. An incident on New Year's Eve affects all their lives for the next 20 7ears or so. There are many trials and tribulations along the way before the 3 main characters sort out their personal and professional lives.

This is a wonderfully engrossing book with great characters and plot lines. Recommended.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

wow i have no words
a beautiful intricate story of how three lives are forever changed and intertwined after one event that happens one night. It has characters that you’ll root for and hope they have the best outcomes. This story hooked me in from the first few pages and you will not be dissatisfied

I absolutely loved this book. It was original and fresh with characters you came to care about regardless of their flaws. Starting on millennium eve we follow the three main characters who remain linked by the events of that night. The way in which each deals with the consequences of their actions makes an interesting book that I would recommend heartily. Difficult to say more without giving spoilers!!!

Release Date: Expected 27th May 2021

Genre: Adult Fiction | Contemporary

Trigger Warnings: Death, References to Y2K + 9-11, Sex, Self-Harm, Drugs, Alcohol.


What do you do when someone saves your life? Do you hate them? Feel grateful? Fall in love with them? Maybe all of them?

New Years Day - 2000. A New millenium and a new start (As long as Y2K doesn't end the world of course!) Kerry thought the worst of her worries would be finding a midnight kiss or her best friend Tim getting too drunk - until Joel drops dead with no warning right in the middle of the Brighton Lawns. Desperately trying to get him breathing, fireworks and celebration continue around them - unaware that the worst is happening.

Joel woke up eventually - a miracle. He was going to be pro footballer. A star. But his heart stopped - and now he's a bar man.
Kerry was going to be a Doctor, but now she's working in 999 dispatch. Things are looking good for Tim, finally dating Kerry and a fairly sucessful Doctor.

Years later, the trio find themselves pulled back together under strange circumstances - have they all grown up and grown apart too much?

Told between the distinct voices of our three characters, this story spans eighteen years of their lives as they grow from teenagers to adults and all the challenges and changes they have to overcome. Their lives intertwined in the most wonderful and heartbreaking ways and they always end up coming back to each other whether they want to or not.

This was a real heart-wrencher from the first pages, and I was automatically invested in Kerry from the moment I met her. She wanted to change the world, she wanted to help people, she wanted to fall in love - and I so wanted her to be happy despite the hardship thrown her way. However, I found myself flicking quickly through the chapters when Joel and Tim were narrating, I'm aware they're not intended to be particularly likeable characters but I found them impossible to connect with. But the serindipity of the trio together was definitely something special.

Also - Learn basic first aid guys, you'll never know when you need it.


RATING: ⭐⭐⭐


Thank you to Eva Carter & Pan MacMillan for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I loved this book. On New Year’s Eve 17 year olds Kerry and Tim watch Joel collapse to the floor and they save his life. In the coming years the three intertwine regularly. Tim and Kerry end up in a relationship and build their careers in medicine, but Joel is always on Kerry’s mind. Heartbreak along the way for each of them, but Kerry and Joel end up where they should be. An emotional read

It’s almost midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999, when Joel’s heart stops beating. Luckily for Joel, Kerry is there and immediately starts performing CPR, ultimately saving his life, whilst her best friend Tim freezes, unable to help. This surprises Kerry since they are both working hard on their A-Levels to ensure they get a place at medical school, a dream they have shared since they were small. Kerry and Tim both know Joel too, as he used to be in the same class as them at school. However, whilst they stayed on to continue with their studies, Joel got signed for a football apprenticeship by the Dolphins FC. But Kerry saving Joel’s life is only the beginning of the story and this single moment will change the course of all three of their lives forever.

I absolutely loved this story and became so invested in Kerry, Joel and Tim’s lives in the weeks, months and years following that fateful New Year’s Eve night. I feel like I got to know each of them so well over the course of the book and really liked how the chapters would alternate from each of their perspectives in the first person throughout.

There is so much emotion and feeling within the pages of this book and I truly cared about what happened to each of the characters and how they were feeling at any given time. There were so many ups and downs for Kerry, Joel and Tim with each of them having a real rollercoaster of experiences in their personal and working lives in the years following that fateful night.

I felt so connected to these wonderful characters and empathised with them all at different moments in the book. I definitely found myself thinking ‘oh no’ and ‘if only things could have happened differently’ at so many points in the story, and this feeling kept me turning the pages as I just cared so much for Joel, Kerry and Tim and wanted to see what would happen for them next. There were some great surprises along the way too and this story definitely highlights how the little things left unsaid or wrongly assumed, can have such far reaching consequences. I also thought it was clever how the introduction page to each of the four parts of this book has a secondary element which only becomes clear at the end.

I enjoyed this story so much and didn’t want to have to say goodbye to these wonderful characters when I reached the end!

My attention was drawn to this book by the reference to St John Ambulance Cadets and one of the main characters carrying out CPR successfully.
It starts off a bit slowly but then builds to a crescendo, so required a bit of perseverance which was well worth it.
The story tells about the relationship between three people and the impact of one requiring CPR. It addresses the issue of young people going through that awful time of "what are you going to do" and in one case being pushed in the wrong direction before finding satisfaction, another going completely off the rails until a life changing event as he becomes a father and the central figure's handling of stress and her relationship with the other two.
I enjoyed the book and would recommend reading it.

Kerry, Tim and Joel’s lives all change forever on the night of the millennium. As the years go by, they continue to cross paths and the impact of that night is felt for years to come.

I really enjoyed the start of this book. The author did a wonderful job of setting up the character’s stories but lost me along the way. I know we don’t always fall in love characters in books but I really struggled to get on board with a lot of the back and forth actions of the characters.

That said, the story was nice and the medical BT’s sprinkled throughout were different. I also enjoyed the narrative around defining moments, and that not all ‘defining’ moments have to define us.

Wow what a journey! I was supposed to start this on 29th as part of a readalong. Anyway, I started and didn’t finish!
I was so invested in Kerry, Joel and Tim and their lives. All are imperfect and relatable and make mistakes. I love them all the more for it.
This felt like a love story, not a romance, because it’s a messy story about life. It also felt like a love story to the human body, those that save lives and the wonder of the ordinary. It felt like a love story to the miraculous things our bodies can do, how it can betray us and how far we have come in fixing those problems. This was a very emotional read, written so well and in such a way that I will never forget these characters.

It also serves as a reminder to learn your basic first aid, which I already have done, but it started a conversation between me and my boyfriend of 14 years in which I learned that he didn’t know the recovery position or CPR, and that will be remedied ASAP.