This story follows a year in the life of Jess, an American woman with a new job, a new attitude, and a new residence in London. Alex is one of her flatmates, and she becomes enamored with him almost immediately. This is a slow burn that begins with Alex actually instigating a friends with benefits situation with a different flatmate, not our beloved Jess, much to her chagrin.
Stick with it and remember the words slow burn. Over the course of a year, many things happen, Jess becomes more comfortable in her new life, emotions are up and down and everything in between. We also get a year’s worth of London as Curtis writes the city almost like a secondary character. We start in December and find our resolution the following year. As the cover explains, it really is a year that changes everything!
Christmas and London are a match made in heaven.
There’s a man on the street corner selling hot chestnuts by the bag, filling the air with the smell of cinnamon and vanilla. The ornate wooden windows of Liberty are glittering with lights and decorations. I stop to look at a huge tree swathed in ribbons and hung with a million dancy fairy lights and—
“Watch out!”
A woman crashes into me, giving me a furious look and weaving past, muttering loudly about bloody tourists.
I am not a tourist, I think. I am – or will be, in just a couple of hours – an official Londoner.