Book Review - One Small Act of Kindness by Lucy Dillon

 

One Small Act of Kindness by Lucy Dillon

Published: 23rd April 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Pages: 480

Available in Paperback and on Kindle

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Blurb

What can you do to make the world a better place?

Libby helps a stranger, and transforms her life in the process.

Libby and her husband Jason have moved back to his hometown to turn the family B&B into a boutique hotel. They have left London behind and all the memories - good and bad - that went with it.

The injured woman Libby finds lying in the remote country road has lost her memory. She doesn't know why she came to be there, and no one seems to be looking for her.

When Libby offers to take her in, this one small act of kindness sets in motion a chain of events that will change many people's lives . . .

Review

After reading a couple of Lucy’s previous novels I was really excited to read her latest offering, One Small Act of Kindness and it’s just as good, if not better than what I was expecting.

Libby and her husband Jason have recently left London and returned to his hometown to turn his mother’s  ailing B & B into a small boutique hotel. On the surface these two seem happy but as the story unfolds memories from London come back to haunt them.

Pippa has been hit by a car outside Libby’s hotel, she has no recollection of her previous life or exactly what has brought her to the hotel.  Libby offers Pippa refuge in the hotel and slowly as these two women begin to make sense of their lives again, the lives of those around them begin to change.

I loved this book, the sense of mystery of Pippa’s previous life really had me hooked and I did find this side of the story more interesting than Libby’s. I was longing to find out why Pippa was at the hotel and as the story continued there were even more elements of mystery that I wanted answers to. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Libby, she was a lovely bubbly character, I just didn’t really like Jason and the way his mother worshiped him just annoyed me.

Another thing I loved was “Sir Bob” and the way Lucy has made him have a real presence in the book. I’m not a dog person at all but even I could have a soft spot for Bob and his droopy face longing for some bacon titbits.

The idea that one small act of kindness can change people’s lives is brilliant and I thought it worked so well with these characters. It was very uplifting to read about all the other people’s acts of kindness throughout the book and I think we should all take this idea into our own lives as who knows what might happen when we help someone.

I did feel the ending was a little rushed but think this could have been because this book ended far too soon for me, I was totally absorbed with the characters and was sad to let them go. Luckily for me I have Lucy’s previous novel A Hundred Pieces of Me to keep me going until she writes another brilliant book.

Fans of Lucy will adore this book and if you haven’t read anything by her then this is the perfect one to start with full of realistic warm characters, an intriguing sense of mystery and a story which will leave you feeling good about the world.

I would like to thank Hodder & Stoughton for sending me a review copy via bookbridgr and would rate this book 5/5.