Noelle Butterby had a bad evening. She had traveled all the way to where she went to college for the opening of the time capsule she and her friends had put items in ten years ago. But when she gets there, not only has the surprise snowstorm prevented them from digging up all the time capsules, but Noelle saw her ex-boyfriend across the room, and he didn’t even acknowledge him.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Noelle got stuck on the highway on her way home, the traffic stopped for miles because of that snowstorm that already ruined her evening, so unusual for England in late March. Her phone is almost of battery, and her charging cord stopped working, and she needs to call home, but she can’t. She’s stuck.
Enter Sam. A tall, handsome American knocks on Noelle’s car window and asks if he can help. He offers her the charging cord in his warm rental car, along with his kindness, great smile, and shining smile. For eight hours, they spend time together in Sam’s car, talking and laughing, getting help and snacks from others on the highway, and offering first aid to a woman who slid and hit her head on her own car’s bumper.
And then it’s over.
The highway opens again, Sam heads back to America, and Noelle goes back to her life. She lives with her mother, who has never been quite the same since her stroke. She recovered physically, but it broke her spirit and now she needs to have someone around her or she falls apart. So Noelle has put her dreams of being a florist on hold, working as a cleaner so she can have a flexible schedule for when her mother needs her.
She does have a younger brother, but when he’s not out on the road with his band, he’s not entirely reliable. Like when he was he was at home with his mother, and she had decided to get something out of the attic, and she got her foot caught in the ladder. When Noelle got home, her mother was sitting down and her brother had put ice on it, but when it was still painful and swollen in the middle of the night, it was Noelle who had taken her to the hospital to see if the leg was broken.
Noelle sat in the hospital hallway in the middle of the night, basically still in her pajamas, not at all sure of what was going on and then she sees the door open. Noelle thought it might be her ex-boyfriend Ed, the one who ignored her at the reunion, the one she had bumped into on the street and had a pleasant chat with, the one who is a doctor, but it wasn’t Ed she saw. Somehow, it was Sam.
She and Sam sit in the hallway of the hospital talking like old friends. It turns out his father had fallen, and he had brought him to the hospital to get him checked out. Is it just a coincidence, or is it something more?
When she was in school, Noelle’s best friend was Daisy. She had gone to that reunion to get the camera Daisy had put in the time capsule, because it was shorty after that that she had been killed in a tragic car accident. A car accident that Noelle had almost been in too, except that Ed asked her to go home with him. Daisy had talked about the red thread, a thread of fate that ties you to the person you’re supposed to be with. It can get tangled but it cannot break. Could Sam be Noelle’s red thread? Or is that just a fantasy about a handsome stranger who oddly keeps showing up when she needs someone the most?
As Noelle figures out what it is she really wants from her life, how to be the person Daisy always thought her friend would grow up to be, she has to face the feelings she’d been pushing away since her mom got sick. Will she figure out what her red thread is and follow it to true love, or will she stay tangled up and alone?
Eight Perfect Hours is a heart-warming story of a woman trying to find her way in life. Author Lia Louis has crafted a lovely story of self-realization and love, with characters who feel like friends. There is a lot of heartbreak in this story, but there is also a lot of heart and joy and friendship. Watching Noelle find her way is a lovely journey, and I hope everyone who reads this book finds the same enjoyment I did with it.
I really loved the idea of the red thread, and watching the thread’s knots unravel throughout this story was the uplifting experience I needed right now. Being there with Noelle as she figured out what it was she really wanted, and seeing her joy as she got to take steps towards her dreams made my heart open up for her. The grief in this book is very real, but so is the pure happiness of being true to yourself.
Egalleys for Eight Perfect Hours were provided by Atria Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
