"I see you. Not who I want you to be, or who I think you should be. I see you."
Of all the taxis in all of Cape Town, Sophia Roux had to stumble into his.
She should be at her “perfect” sister’s bedside, awaiting the arrival of the newest member of her family. But the thought of spending hours at the hospital with her suffocating relatives has Sophia hailing the first taxi she sees. Only to realise too late that the man at the wheel of her getaway car is the most unpleasant one she’s ever had the misfortune to meet.
Parker Jones, the handsome yet surly driver in question, is used to dealing with baggage of the family variety. And it just so happens he’s in need of temporary escape from his own. Witty banter with a beautiful—if exasperating—woman while chauffeuring her around the city on a gorgeous spring day makes for an ideal break from reality.
But a lot can happen in twenty-four hours: babies can be born, family can reconnect. And maybe the most unlikely pair can fall in love.
She should be at her “perfect” sister’s bedside, awaiting the arrival of the newest member of her family. But the thought of spending hours at the hospital with her suffocating relatives has Sophia hailing the first taxi she sees. Only to realise too late that the man at the wheel of her getaway car is the most unpleasant one she’s ever had the misfortune to meet.
Parker Jones, the handsome yet surly driver in question, is used to dealing with baggage of the family variety. And it just so happens he’s in need of temporary escape from his own. Witty banter with a beautiful—if exasperating—woman while chauffeuring her around the city on a gorgeous spring day makes for an ideal break from reality.
But a lot can happen in twenty-four hours: babies can be born, family can reconnect. And maybe the most unlikely pair can fall in love.
I can't explain how much this book has impacted my life. It's surprising that it takes place in one day because these characters experience so many emotions and situations, character development, important moments in their lives, falling in love, fights and so much more and it all happens in this one day. Everything felt incredibly natural, intrinsic and believable. Our couple meets when Sophia needs to leave the hospital where her sister is about to give birth, she hails a taxi and when she goes in she meets Parker. He was in the hospital too because his mother suffered an accident and he leave because he knows everything is about to change. From there, they go on multiple adventures around the town, they get to know each other, they have meaningful and deep conversations and they eventually have to deal with their lives outside of their interactions with each other. They go from having a really bad and complicated day to, at least, having a more interesting day.
One Day To Fall was written so beautifully, the way everything was constructed made me root for the characters and their lives outside of the romance from the beginning but their attraction and growing love might have been my favorite thing about this story. I don't see a lot of books where an author puts this much care in carefully building interactions between the two main characters and in how they communicate between the bubble that they're in during this day and the outside world. The complexity of their personalities and relationship that varied between hate to love and looking for distractions throughout this awful day managed to catch my attention and to kept me interested in knowing how everything was going to end up. I could honestly keep reading about their lives for ages. I want to know about their future and how they are going to grow. If this book would have a thousand more pages I would be really happy to read them. I would even anticipate them.
I don't think this is a book for everyone, but if it's for you, it has the capacity to grab you and hold you close and probably never let you go. I know one day romances is not something that everyone likes. It's also a slow book to get into. I would highly encourage everyone to give it a chance, because it's definitely a story that took me on a journey, that made me cry, laugh and believe in these character's narrative. It made me think about life and the change of relationships as you live, how complicated those changes are and how even though they are hard and they hurt in the process of healing or breaking, that process and those endings are worth it. The writing is absolute poetry and the intimate moments between them were full of chemistry and closeness. I really think their interactions and the way they were written made the entire book. I honestly think this is a piece of art that everyone should read.
CW: parent with dementia, mentions of death of a parent, side character giving birth.
