Francesca Hornak's Seven Days of Us

As I've often admitted, I am not a reading purist: I love to read a "real book" with the heft of the volume in my hand, but I'm just as content to read an electronic book. I also take exception to those who don't think audiobooks count as reading.

I freely remind them of the children of Israel who only knew the Word from listening as it was read aloud. Who am I to discount that experience?

Honestly, I can't go for long without a book on CD loaded in the car, and the only way I can remember if I read or listened to a book is that I can sometimes recall the excellence of the reader.

To fuel my fix, I'm often scanning the local library shelves, starting with new arrivals and then scanning the shelves for something I might have overlooked. I also make regular use of the hold option, drawing from the whole local library system.

Recently, while I was waiting on a couple of requests, I ran across Francesca Hornak's novel Seven Days of Us. The back cover description caught my eye, and I decided to give it a try, even though I had not heard anything about the book.

The novel, set in England during Christmas follows several members of the Birch family, forced to spend the week of the holiday in quarantine when their daughter Olivia returns from Liberia, where she was one of a group of doctors providing humanitarian aid during an outbreak of the deadly, highly contagious hog virus. Olivia soon learns that Sean, her Irish colleague with whom she's formed a relationship--against protocol--has come down with the virus. She's unable to reveal her concern to anyone since their relationship broke no-touch regulations, meant to safeguard them and those with which they came in contact.

Meanwhile, the younger Birch daughter Phoebe, her father's favorite, has just become engaged, plunging her into wedding planning frenzy. To add to the tension, their father Andrew learns that he fathered a son Jesse years ago, when he and Emma were first dating. Although Andrew has achieved a certain level of fame as a snarky food critic, he formerly served as a war correspondent, where he and Jesse's birth mother enjoyed a brief tryst.

Hornak manages to balance the humorous and serious over the course of the seven days the Birches spend together in the old country home that once belonged to Emma's family. As they are joined first by Phoebe's fiance' and then Jesse, readers soon learn that each of the characters is harboring secrets. No single character appears particularly villainous: each has noble points and flaws, making them both sympathetic and believable characters. The shifting dynamics of the family during their imposed quarantine keep readers engaged, sometimes squirming with them, sometimes cheering or laughing aloud, and sometimes grieving.

In whatever format one chooses, the novel provides at least a good seven days of reading entertainment.

Francesca Hornak's Seven Days of Us