Francesca Hornak’s debut novel, Seven Days of Us, is an interesting blend of family drama, humor and character study.   I loved and hated it.  I have to admit, that I struggled with the first few chapters, but I eventually got into the even rhythm of the story.   The layout is interesting, and the characters were deliciously unlikable—some were the sort you love to hate, while others had to reveal themselves wholly in order to care for them.

Seven days of quarantine, and each character shares the narration for any particular day.  Every day the family members’ existence, memories, and revelations are revealed.  The Birch family is not particularly likeable.  As individuals, they have secrets and they harbor resentments. They’re self absorbed.  As family, they’re not much better.  This is a seriously dysfunctional family.  They don’t communicate, share, or offer support.  Not one of them looks to the family as a bastion from their problems.  They have grown apart, and each cocoons him-or her-self in their own little world.  The lack of identity as a family unit is tragic, and seven days of forced togetherness without outside diversion seems tortuous.

Avoid spoiler reviews that summarize the plot.  While there are no big twists, as the story chunks along, day by day of the forced quarantine, and the tension mounts as the characters get moody and cranky as their old baggage/arguments resurface.  The family dynamics become barely contained chaos with the addition of a couple unplanned, additions to the ancestral country home.  

The upheaval created by these guests changed my view of the characters dramatically.  Those unexpected, unwanted guests force the members of the Birch family to become more introspective about their choices and actions, and subsequently, Andrew, Emma, Olivia, and Phoebe are laid open to one another.

Seven Days of Us is about family.  It is about secrets and lies destroying relationships.  It’s about omissions and unspoken resentments being as deadly as a bold-faced lie.  It’s about reasons to again believe that your family will do anything and everything for you.  You can return home again.

Sometimes the stars align and I get lucky. I won a copy of this novel from the publisher AND I was approved for it on Netgalley, so I took this as a sign that I had to read it. I love holiday books, and I really wanted to push this one off until closer to Christmas, but since I did receive TWO advance copies, I felt I should read it before the publishing date. But I highly recommend picking this one up to read either over the Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday, cuddled under a blanket, next to a smoldering fire, with a cup of tea in hand. Think of this as a much mellower--and British--version of a Jonathan Tropper novel. I enjoyed the flawed characters and how they grew through the book but still stayed true to their characters. I found myself identifying with different aspects--positive and negative--of each one. Seven Days of Us continued to surprise until the end!

Imagine being stuck in your home with your immediate for seven days under quarantine and adding in its the week of Christmas with heightened feelings involved!  Although I wondered from the beginning how real this could be and if the government would allow you to quarantine yourself and would have you quarantined with your family, it still made for a fun story.

Olivia and Phoebe are sisters, but that is as far as the similarities go.  They were raised in the same home, but thats about it.  Phoebe is still living and home and waiting for her prince charming to sweep her off her feet.  Olivia is the cause of the quarantine and has spent her life from adventure to adventure.  With Emma and Andrew their parents each holding secrets, the seven day quarantine will be full of fun drama!

I loved the story.  Although I may have rolled my eyes a few times at the plausibility of it all, I still loved seeing a small immediate family hash out the past and the present and try to reconnect and love on each other.  

If you are a fan like I am of the family drama then this one is right up your alley.  I will warn that it is set in England and definitely has a British feel to it, so if that isn't your thing, I would warn you against this book.  BUT if you don't mind a little Britishness in your reading, then this one is just great!

Olivia returns home from treating an epidemic in Africa and it forces not only her, but her entire family to be quarantined for the entire week over the Christmas holidays.  A GR friend of mine compared this to This is Where I Leave You.  But this is bittersweet, sad really, not humorous.  Almost everyone is hiding some sort of secret, all of which will rock the family.  The thing here is that these folks just don't talk to each other.  Is it, as Jesse thinks, that whole British stiff upper lip thing?  The story is told from all the multiple points of view, so you are privy to all their thoughts, the same ones they aren't confiding to each other.     This book reminds us why family is so often best taken in small doses.  You see the sibling rivalry, the parental favorites.    

One of the main themes here is feeling out of place.  Whether it's Olivia feeling overwhelmed to be back in England and dealing with first world problems or Jesse flying from L.A. to the Norfolk seaside of England to meet his birth father.  As Olivia writes “Because it turns out that coming back home can be lonely”.    

I alternated between feeling sympathy for Phoebe and irritated by her.  The typical young thing, no concerns beyond her wedding dreams.  Flip side, I wanted to strangle Andrew, who thinks playing ostrich will solve his problems.   Hornak does a wonderful job of fleshing out each one of these characters and getting the whole family dynamic thing.  

This a lovely, sad character study.  There are a few too many melodramatic turns, some of which you can see coming from miles away.  But that doesn't stop this from being, in the end,  a heartwarming tale of family love.  

My thanks to netgalley and Berkeley Publishing for an advance copy of this novel.

In Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak, a seven day quarantine means the dysfunctional Birch family are sequestered together during Christmas. With each of them keeping secrets, will this tense reunion prove to be a time of healing once the revelation begin to unfold?

Oldest daughter Olivia is a doctor who spends most of her time volunteering with humanitarian agencies during health epidemics in third world countries. With her latest rotation over, she is forced into quarantine to monitor for symptoms of the deadly Haag virus. She and fellow doctor, Sean Coughlan, ignored the strict no contact rule and for the first time in her life, she has fallen in love. Olivia has zero patience for her self-centered and frivolous younger sister, Phoebe, and her relationship with her parents,  Andrew and Emma, is also quite strained.  Olivia is already struggling with her reintegration into regular life when her world is rocked by possibly devastating news.

Twenty-nine and still living at home, Phoebe is happy about her recent engagement despite her disappointment with some aspects of her fiancé George’s proposal.  Now completely wrapped up in planning her upcoming nuptials, she has no interest in anything negative intruding on her excitement.  Needless to say, Phoebe is not exactly the most sympathetic family member due to her self-absorption and unhappiness when she is not the center of everyone’s attention.

Matriarch Emma is determined to make the most of Olivia’s first Christmas with the family in years so she conceals some unexpected news about herself.  Relentlessly upbeat and positive, she refuses to let anything mar their time together and it is almost comical how she acknowledges bad news yet immediately pretends it has no effect on her or her family. When she learns some very troubling information about her husband, Emma becomes quite reflective about their marriage but will she confront Andrew about this discovery?

A former war correspondent who gave up his career for his family, Andrew is a restaurant critic whose distant past unexpectedly collides with his present. As he looks back on the early years of his courtship and marriage to Emma, he barely recognizes who they used to be. He delights in Phoebe’s sparkling personality and they are quite close but his relationship with Olivia has always been distant.  Turning his back on a stunning disclosure, how will Andrew react when is forced to deal with this life-altering bit of news head on?

Despite a rather slow beginning, Seven Days of Us is ultimately an engrossing family drama that is sure to resonate with readers who can relate to imperfect family relationships. The characters are quite eclectic and diverse with relatable flaws and strengths. The storyline is refreshingly unique and Francesca Hornak bring the novel to twist-filled emotional conclusion.

I really loved this family drama (even though it did make my hypochondria flare up a bit ;-). Emma and Andrew's oldest, Olivia, has returned to England for Christmas after treating patients with an ebola-like disease in Liberia. The entire family must spend seven days together in quarantine in the family's country estate. Each family member has one gigantic secret, which keeps the level of tension and suspense high for everyone, including the reader. The chapters are short, and the entire novel is told in alternating viewpoints to keep you turning the pages. This is a wonderful comedy of errors, as well as a beautiful meditation on love and family. Highly recommended if you enjoy British humor and family dramas.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the preview copy!

A funny, heartbreaking, book about a family who must spend the Christmas week together in quarantine after oldest daughter Olivia returns from Liberia and may have been in contact with the Haag virus,

But what the others don’t realize that each member of the family is hiding a secret, mom Emma has found out she has cancer but doesn’t want to tell the family until after Christmas.  Dad Andrew fathered a son many years ago in Afghanistan and now Jesse has found him and wants to meet.  Youngest daughter Phoebe is spoiled rotten and only interested in getting married to her fiancé of six years George who she doesn’t realize spent a drunken night in a hotel room with Jesse who is gay.  Even staid doctor Olivia has a secret that in no hands -no touch Liberia she met another doctor and fell in love.

I received this advanced copy from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Seven Days of Us is an entertaining and deceptively light novel about a family. The Birches are an interesting group. Andrew, the father, is a snarky restaurant reviewer for a newspaper. Emma, the matriarch, just wants everyone to have the kind of Christmas holiday she remembers from childhood. Altruistic eldest daughter Olivia is a doctor just returned from relief work in Liberia and the reason for the family quarantine. Younger daughter Phoebe is completely self-absorbed and more than a bit annoyed at being forced to spend the holidays with her family instead of her new fiancé. Told from the perspective of each family member, plus a couple of other characters, the chapters are short and follow a day-by-day form that made the novel easy to stop and start reading. This was also a great way to lay out the Birch family’s messy dynamics. It ended up being an emotional read for me – that was unexpected and very much appreciated. Recommended to fans of novels about imperfect families. I loved the setting(s) and the holiday-ness to which I think most readers will relate on one level or another.

Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak will keep you up late as you race to the finish.  This novel features a British family who is in a voluntary one week quarantine after one of their members returns from treating plague victims in Africa.  The quarantine rules aren't followed quite as strictly as they should be and this just adds to the plot.  I love all of the family members as they each have their own quirks.  I'm a bit conflicted about the ending and I keep coming back to whether I'd have written it the same way if I'd been the author.  This book was a pleasure to read.  Read and enjoy!

It's hard to give an objective review of this book, because it felt very personal for me. I very strongly identified with Olivia's character. Reading about her return to England after working as a doctor during a pandemic in Africa reminded me of returning to the US after living in southern Africa. Like Olivia, I had trouble communicating with people who seemed so shallow, self-centered, and stupid, who didn't seem to care about the reality of so many people facing pandemics, poverty, low literacy, unemployment... But, in the book and in life, I learned to see the complexities in people, the importance of sharing and explaining instead of being hostile and withdrawn, and to appreciate that we are all products of our life experiences, internal biases, and cultural surroundings. Love can bridge the gaps, can open people's eyes, and can inspire people to go out and be good in the world.

Really enjoyed this!  It's very character driven so you really get to know these characters.  There were some good twists and things that I wasn't expecting.  I felt a lot for these characters and thought the drama was realistic.  Really good book!

This is a solid story about a family shoved together for a week during the holidays because of a quarantine. The older sister, Olivia, has been working in an epidemic zone in Africa and might be contagious herself, and so the entire family has to stay at home. Of course they live on a property with a giant manor plus a bungalow, so it is not quite as "close quarters" as it could have been in a more middle class telling of this story. Interesting choice.

Each chapter changes perspective to a different character and lists the specific date and time of the events, and the book moves in linear fashion. There are also pieces of history coming out though, because Olivia usually skips family time even on holidays, younger sister Phoebe has just gotten engaged and is hoping to marry at the home, and an unknown half-brother has made his presence known to the father when the novel starts. The mother and inheritor of the estate has also received a cancer diagnosis, but has not told her family.

Very readable, probably best as a holiday or beachy read, but not something I can see sticking with me for long. Solid 3-3.5 stars.

Lovely, bittersweet book. A good read-alike for Jojo Moyes, etc.

Seven Days of Us is an entertaining, quick read about a family forced into isolation together — a perfect setting for secrets to emerge and for walls to come down. Phoebe and Olivia rediscover the sisterly affection that’s been absent since childhood; Andrew and Olivia finally come to understand one another’s obsessions and sacrifices; Emma and Andrew confront the iciness that’s taken hold in their marriage. Meanwhile, Phoebe’s fiancé crashes the quarantine, as does an American who ends up being the long-lost illegitimate son Andrew never knew he had.

The story moves along at a smart pace, with each character getting bits and pieces of the story. The main chapters focus on the seven days of quarantine, while within each day, there are sections devoted to the different characters, each section showing the time and the location within the house — which lends the narrative a claustrophobic air that’s appropriate for the involuntary intimacy and close quarters experienced by the family.

I do wish the author had included some sort of introduction explaining the quarantine rules. Why would a doctor treating epidemic patients be allowed back into England, passing through a major aiport, in order to go into quarantine with her family? Is this a normal protocol? Sure, readers could Google it, but it would have been helpful to have a bit of context, considering that this is the major plot driver of the entire book.

My interest never flagged, but certain plot developments (no spoilers here!) were completely obvious, and a tragic turn toward the end of the book seemed both jarring and unnecessary.

Overall, I recommend Seven Days of Us. It’s a pleasant, amusing story of family dynamics, and the ups and downs of the relationships between parents and children, between siblings, and between spouses definitely ring true.

Above average family drama as close as it gets to literate fiction largely due to the writing flow and structure.  The characters and story lacked
the complex nuances of literary fiction, an enjoyable read nonetheless.  three plus stars

Well one third of the way through this book I didn’t think I could take any more of this family and it’s British-ness, so up tight! I have four daughters and son in laws and five grandchildren so I know a bit about family get togethers. It’s true that often when we are all together the girls drop back into their slot in the family, oldest, baby, funniest, most laid back, etc. This family didn’t seem to have any humor to tie them together but I muddled on. But SEVEN DAYS, we never go more than four days all together, that is the absolute limit, so I was willing to see how they would survive the quarantine.

What a surprise the rest of this book was!! Ms. Hormak, in the space of just seven days, managed to make these characters grow, or maybe “come out” to each other would be a better way to describe it. I will quickly go through the characters as there are many other reviews that have written at length about them, but then what is the surprise for the new reader?

Dad Andrew writes a review column about restaurants, has done so for many years, he can be quite snarky.  His first job and passion was being a war correspondent, but when children arrived he gave that up as it was too risky. He ends up being quite funny, forgiving and open.

Mom Emma loves them all to tears and just wants everyone to get along (I know this feeling well).  She has just been diagnosed with what could be a devastating cancerous growth but chooses to hide it from the family until after the quarantine. She is truly a caring, open, warm and funny person who will have to learn to lean on others sometimes.

Oldest sister Olivia is a doctor just returning from treating an outburst of Haag virus in Liberia and needs to be quarantined, her family insists that she come home and they will all sit out this quarantine together.  She has always been very independent, interested in helping people and getting to know other cultures, though she doesn’t understand her own family. She has a new love which she is keeping secret until after the seven days are up. 

Little sister Phoebe has always been a daddy’s girl. She goes to all of the restaurants he visits and he often incorporates  her viewpoint and impressions into his reviews. She is newly engaged and thrilled to finally be adding her name to the list of her friends who are getting married. She loves Olivia and likes to remember the days when they were younger and spent many fun times together. She spends lots of time obsessing about the correct make up, clothes to wear, etc.

There is a surprise guest at Christmas this year, only Andrew had an inkling that something or rather someone, might be calling upon him soon but he didn’t expect it at Christmas, especially since they are under quarantine!

As the secrets that these characters hold tight begin to come to light and they share what’s in their hearts, the family and this book takes off.  By the end I was sobbing at one point, that’s how much I felt about these people who were suddenly not so different than my family, or probably yours and many others.

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher and NetGalley.

 Will also post to Amazon and Barnes and Noble upon publication.

Friends and co-workers have really enjoyed this book, but I couldn't make it past the first few chapters.

Fantastic! I had a stack of galleys on my pile that desperately needed to be read, but couldn't put this one down. Quick and insightful, with an incredibly thoughtful and realistic take on family dynamics. I can't imagine a better book to take home for the holidays.

The idea behind the story sounded interesting. Who honestly likes too much time with family members? Unfortunately, this author failed to hold my attention. I appreciate the effort, but this novel just wasn't for me.

Most families probably wouldn't find it arduous to be confined to quarters for a seven-day period that includes Christmas. You stock up on food (or have it delivered if supplies run low), queue up some interesting programs on Netflix, bake and cook, play some board games, read the books that have been sidelined all year, and maybe even have some conversations. It all sounds rather delightful, like being stranded in a snowstorm with all the modern conveniences.

For the Birch family, it's an ordeal in claustrophobia. Sexagenarians Andrew and Emma, who have drifted apart, will have their adult daughters Olivia and Phoebe both home for the holidays, but no one seems to be looking forward to it. This is in part because Olivia is back from Liberia where she has been working with people afflicted with the Haag virus (think Ebola) and she is under a seven day voluntary quarantine. Which means the family must be quarantined, too. It's also in part due to the fact that the holidays will be spent at Weyfield Hall, Emma's spacious but drafty childhood home, which has seen better days and Emma steadfastly refuses any renovations. Andrew has never felt comfortable there and Olive is especially uncomfortable with its amenities after months of deprivation and squalor.

The biggest problem, though, is that almost everyone has at least one huge secret. Meet the Birches:

Emma, the matriarch. She sacrificed whatever career aspirations she might have had to raise their children and married beneath her station in the eyes of her parents. She recently received a worrying medical diagnosis and has decided to keep that news to herself until after the holidays. Only her best friend and a total stranger she met at the airport know. She believes it would cast a cloud over their festivities, and there's nothing anyone can do about it until the New Year anyway.

Andrew, the patriarch. A former war correspondent who covered Lebanon many decades ago. After the birth of their second daughter, Emma compelled him to give up his dangerous career. Since then, he's been writing snarky restaurant reviews. A one-night stand during his Lebanese days produced a son that he didn't know anything about until recently. He's uncertain how to respond to the young man's email or how to broach the news to his family, so he does nothing, hoping the issue will resolve on its own.

Olive, 32, the older daughter, a doctor. Though neither she nor her father would admit it, they are very much alike. She's adventurous and has a strong social and moral conscience that has taken her far afield over the years. While in Liberia, she broke protocols and had a physical relationship with another doctor, potentially exposing herself to the Haag virus. She isn't ready to tell her family about this burgeoning relationship, and is devastated when she learns that Sean has been infected with Haag.

Phoebe, 28, does something involving reality television. More than a little spoiled and rarely serious about much, she is her father's favorite, often joining him on his restaurant visits. She still lives with her parents, although she has recently gotten engaged to her long-time boyfriend, George, and is immersing herself in the world of wedding preparations.

Two other characters play a large part in the proceedings. First, there's George, the new fiancé. He comes from a good family, has a good education, but there's something not quite right in the relationship and the elder Birches aren't terribly happy he'll be their son-in-law, although they never voice this opinion. And then there's Jesse, Andrew's heretofore unknown son, a gay vegan documentary film maker who was raised in America. He's taken a huge gamble in going to Norfolk, England, hoping to meet his father without having any response to his appeals. Sean, carrying out a very public battle with a deadly illness, is off-screen for much of the book.

The story is both quaint and fraught with crises as secrets are deliberately or accidentally revealed. The book relies heavily on coincidence (what are the odds that Emma would meet Jesse at Heathrow while waiting to pick up Olive, or that Jesse would end up having drinks with George and his siblings at a pub?), and the characters all tend to be somewhat self-absorbed and judgmental. It plays out a bit like a farce, with people stumbling in at exactly the wrong moment to overhear something being said about them or, like Jesse, literally stumbling into the quarantine house thanks to a door being ajar.

It's a book mostly about rediscovering one's self and the other members of the nuclear family. Each of the Birches must acknowledge some hard truths about themselves and about the state of their relationships with each of the others in the family. It demonstrates the theory that with four people there are at least eight different relationships: each individual with each other individual, as well as parents to offspring and, for example, the strong bond between Andrew and Phoebe vs Emma and Olvia.

It takes a pressure cooker environment, where no one can flee except into the omnipresent social media gadgets, to force them to come to terms with each other and arrive at a new state of being. Best read during a blizzard, preferably with eggnog or some other tipple at hand and plenty of festive food and music.