This book was a fun treat! I loved it! It was a good reset after I read a heavier book. It kept me flipping pages well past my bedtime!!

Cleo Wilder’s 30th birthday is coming and she isn’t quite prepared for it. She isn’t where she thought she would be at 30 and her life seems up in the air. Her boss, though gives her an assignment to head to an Irish island to think about life and write about it. She can’t even begin to think about being away from London but she hopes this time on the island helps her figure her next moves in life.
Mack Sullivan’s life is spinning out of control too. He has the opportunity to head to the same island, to settle his soul and make a plan for the next phase of his life.
When they both get to the island they realize, the room has been double booked. This is where things get fun. They either have to work it out or one of them has to leave the island on the next ferry, one week away. Can they get along long enough to enjoy their time on the island? Do they have more in common then could be believed? How long can they make it before they blow up at each other? Or do they find their way and make things work? Josie Silver had me guessing the whole time. This story was well written. It was a quick read and I gave it four stars. I want to thank Netgalley & the author for my copy for an honest review. It was my please to read and review this book. I hope you enjoy it to!!!

What a wonderful romantic getaway. Silver has such a perfect touch with the characters and the plot - taking a trope we're all familiar with and imbuing it with so much heart and humor and delight that we're captivated.

Not going to lie, the idea of "self-coupling" made me nervous. I'm all for self care, but come on...

Despite that, I enjoyed this. Mac and Cleo go through their own journeys while they slowly moved from adversaries to something much more. I absolutely loved the island and all its inhabitants. They were almost just as important as our main characters.

This was my first Josie Silver book, but I think I'll keep my eye on her future projects.

I enjoyed this tale of Cleo, who went to "marry herself" on an island as part of an assignment. While there, she meets Mack, who has come to the island as a photographer. To their initial dismay, they find themselves stuck in a cottage together for their stay, but slowly start to warm up to one another. Each night, they reveal three things about themselves to the other, which starts to create a bond between the two.

Without giving too much away, I really enjoyed watching their relationship develop. The characters were well-written and so was the scenery - I felt like I was there! If you're a fan of romance or Silver's previous work, I definitely recommend this.

One Night on the Island by Josie Silver is a charming book that I didn’t know I needed until I read it. With Covid taking over again and the war in Ukraine heating up, I was feeling down, and this book was the perfect remedy. It restored my faith in human kindness and was a much needed escape.

I really wasn’t sure what the book entailed besides being a romance. When I started and saw the main female protagonist was going to Salvation Island, all I could think of was a reality dating show, but I was wrong. Salvation is stunning and remote, hilly and picturesque, with a strong sense of community and helpfulness. Cleo goes there to write an exposé on turning 30 while single and is tasked with performing nuptials with herself. Yes, it went there, but, it went there with class and self-understanding.

Mac, the main male protagonist, is also on Salvation, yet he’s there to figure out his life and to visit where his “people” come from. This sets up a wonderful setting for a strangers to something more romantic trope.

The writing is witty, smart, relatable and you’ll be wanting to book an Airbnb there asap! If you liked Silver’s earlier book, One Day in December, you’ll for sure love this one too.

“Life is the stuff that happens in the cracks between your plans and expectations.”

This book is really something special. Cleo is nearing her 30th birthday and has been sent to an island off the coast of Ireland for a writing assignment. She is to spend time alone in a cabin and spend her birthday with a ceremony where she essentially "marries" herself. Unfortunately for Cleo, she comes to find that Mac has also arrived with the notion that he would be staying in the very same cabin, owned by his cousin. On the surface, this appears to be you typical forced-proximity romance but is really so much more than that.

Really, the only problem I had with this book is that Mac is a fan of the Red Sox. #goyankees I adored everything about this book. Cleo's journey to rediscover her inner self and to learn to love herself just as she is is one that is inspiring and uplifting. Mac's struggles with the separation in his marriage and how that changes the relationship with both his soon-to-be ex-wife as well as his two sons was heartbreaking and also sweet. I loved how he loved his family. The islanders are a wonderful, quirky, fun group of people that I just wanted to spend more and more time with as Mac and Cleo got to know them better. The setting is intoxicating and romantic in itself. The writing is great as we get to see inside the heads of both main characters. I felt like I was on my own sabbatical while reading this and only wish I could take my own journey to the island. I'm not 100% sold on the ending but it did leave me satisfied enough and did not detract from the enjoyment of the book as it felt very real to the characters. I inhaled the book and am happy to have this island and its characters on my shelf for future visits. Highly recommend!

A classic tale of a woman turning 30 who needs to take a break from her demanding job, Cleo leaves for a remote Irish island to find herself and re-energize her work. She ends up being double booked into the cabin with a man named Mac. I ended up not finishing this book because it was moving quite slow and felt very predictable. It was lacking in both the romance and comedy department for me.

I've seen great reviews of it from others though so definitely give it a try if you love books about vacation, romance, sweet characters.

“One Night On The Island” by Josie Silver wasn’t the romantic comedy I was expecting it to be. While, yes, there was a relationship involved, I found it more about each Mack and Cleo finding and rediscovering their own true selves. I think this book is perfect for anyway who is possibly thinking about having a reset in their own lives or thinking about what next steps they should take.

At times this book was slow moving for my taste, but I think it was purposefully written that way. Silver wanted the reader to explore and analyze and think about the intricacies of those characters’ lives and thoughts. While this isn’t quite the book I imagined it to be, it was one that explored important life lessons.

I am a reader that usually enjoys focusing on the main characters and that is it. However, I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the native townspeople and their lives. A fun element of the book that tied together nicely!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of “One Night on the Island” in exchange for an honest review,

This is the most beautiful novel I've ever read. It felt surface-y at first but as the story went on I started to understand the importance and message of the book. It was so much deeper than you would think, if you are willingly to look that far. I saw so much of myself in Cleo and felt like Silver was telling 'my' story so perhaps that is why I loved this book so much.

I loved it so much as a digital ARC that I pre-ordered the paperback verison to have in my collection because I wanted to be able to annotate, highlight and feel the words in my hands. I sobbed like a baby toward the ending and enjoyed that everything was wrapped up, but not as neatly as romance readers are used to. It was perfection.

Absolutely loved this book! She is fast becoming a go to author for me and this book didn’t disappoint! I highly recommend all her books but especially this one!

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine for the opportunity to read this eARC!

This was sooooo good! It took me weeekkkkkks to read but I am so glad I finished it! The first 50% was such a slow burn for me and I really struggle with slow burns. And this slow burn for me was especially hard because Cleo and Mac did not really have a relationship for the longest time. But I guess that’s also forced proximity for y’all.

Once we got to a certain part *light spoiler but y’all this is a romance so it’s really not* 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 I could not put this down!!! I can’t remember if there’s steam but there wasn’t not so 🌶 I’m going to say.

Read if you like
🥹 Emotional romance
🏠 Forced proximity
🧲 Opposites attract
❤️‍🔥 Slow burn
🛫 Vacation romance

Fun and romantic. Friends and I discussed how this book hit the perfect spot we were looking for. The meet cute was believable and enjoyable!

Another stunning and heartfelt novel by one of my favorite authors! As soon as I was approved for this Netgalley, I had to dive right in. Of course, the writing is fabulous and her characters are always so real but also lovable. But what I really enjoyed about this book was the setting and sense of community on Salvation Island. I loved how the locals took Cleo and Mack in as their own. Each character, even the islanders, had his or her own unique and fiery personality and I loved that.

I also enjoyed Cleo's self-love journey and how she really grew and found herself on that island. She makes some huge decisions and I was thoroughly invested in what she was doing. I also liked how I did not know how this would end. Silver does a great job of making you question some things but in the end, it all wrapped up nicely and I felt pure joy for the characters as if they were my real life friends.

The only one bed trope, but make is a cabin on a remote Irish island 🤗

While it took me a while to get into this book, I found it to be an incredibly heartwarming & endearing story about finding yourself and discovering the meaning of home.

The setting and cast of side characters in this book could not be beat: a remote Irish island full of quirky, unique, and strong-minded individuals who leave an impact on both Cleo, the MC, as well as the readers. On top of that, the two main characters, Cleo & Mac, has great individual journeys, in addition to as a couple.

Highly recommend this heartwarming romance 💗

I have enjoyed other Josie Silver novels in the past, and one of my favorite love stories is One Day In December, so I was excited about this book. However, I was disappointed with the story, and it left me wishing for more.

This story is written in the same signature style that identifies Silver's work. I actually felt it was an easy read, and while the beginning was slow, I was enjoying getting to know both Cleo and Mac. The story is told alternating between both characters' points of view, so each of them gets the chance to explain what's happening in their lives and why they chose Salvation Island for their soul-searching journeys. The pace picks up about 50 pages in when Mac and Cleo realize that they are going to have to share the cabin. Once their daily interactions start, the story gets easier to read. I was intrigued about what would happen.

Unfortunately, while the pace is great, the plot is not. I'm still on the fence about if this is a love story or not. While the novel definitely has all of the elements of a love story, it fell short in the chemistry between the characters and the build-up to a long-lasting relationship that a reader would root for.

Cleo is on a journey to love herself and prove that she can be happy without a significant other. She is all about self-love and making yourself the protagonist of your own story, but once she falls for Mac, everything she stood for goes down the drain. And while that's not necessarily wrong, I couldn't get behind Cleo's choices for a man she has known for only a few days.

*Warning for Slight Spoiler that is revealed early on*

The other thing I just couldn't deal with was Mac's storyline about his separation and issues with his wife. First of all, I can't believe that he was still married. I feel that the story would've been as compelling if he was recently divorced and had lingering feelings for his ex-wife. Then, he meets Chloe and falls for her. Yes, it is clear that he is separated from his wife, and even though their children are aware of the situation, Mac is still a married man. He's still struggling with his feelings for his wife and has not taken the time to process the separation. In fact, the whole point of Mac going to the island is to process what's happening in his marriage, which does not happen because Cleo is already there. I couldn't get on board with the whole thing, and it made me wary of how their relationship would develop.

*End of Spoiler*

One thing I liked about this novel is that the story is filled with great subplots, such as Cleo's friendships with the women from the island, and Mac's talent as a photographer. I truly enjoyed getting to know the other characters like Delta, and I was devastated when one of the people Cleo had recently met peacefully passed away. I found that those small snippets of the life on Salvation Island made me care about the community they had and charmed me into wanting to visit such a lovely place.

Overall, the story could be better. It does not take away from Silver's talent to craft a lovely story with a fantastic writing style. I was intrigued by some of the subplots, and I cared about the story enough to finish it in a few sittings. I liked the characters even if I didn't care for some of their choices, and I found that real-life issues were handled in a realistic and somewhat relatable way.

Is this a love story with a relationship I wanted to root for? Not really. But at the end of the day, life is messy, so I could understand why this is not a usual fairy tale ending.

This book surprised me and meant so much to me during an isolated time. I loved the way Cleo and Mac were so frigid with each other in the beginning, but began to warm to one another. Their relationship was about growth and communication, and I enjoyed the realistic way in which they had to work towards being together. Cleo's journey was beautiful and I resonated with it so much that I did a similar sort of ceremony on my own birthday this past April.

I really wanted to love this book more but once I was toward the half-way mark, I knew it just wasn't for me. While I didn't find the main character unlikeable, she was pretty insufferable for the first three quarters of the book. I was pretty bored about half-way in. The plot, tropes, and dual-perspectives had *so much* potential but I felt like ifar too many pages were wasted on Cleo's internal monologues and complaining. Maybe it was my attention span or the fact that I didn't really care what happened, but I also didn't fully believe in the rather rapid evolution of Cleo and Mack's relationship. It was like they hated each other's guts and then woke up the next morning madly in love. I don't know; I just didn't buy it.

On the bright side, I really enjoyed the island community and the last quarter-ish of the book. Once Cleo and Mack weren't physically together, the plot and intrigued finally picked up. I thought the ending was satisfying and logical, especially given where the two characters are in their lives. I also appreciated the discussion of self-love and acceptance and the complexities of marriage, particularly those that are holding on by a thread.

To me, this book was just okay. I'm sure some readers would thoroughly enjoy it but as I said before, it just wasn't for me despite some redeeming qualities.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the advanced reader copy!

As a big fan of Josie Silver's books (One Day in December and The Two Lives of Lydia Bird), I was so excited to pick up One Night on the Island. Silver is fantastic at a slow burn romance and a longing that stretches across the pages. This latest novel is no exception.

Cleo heads to a remote Irish island to "marry herself," as he boss at a women's magazine puts it. She is committing to herself on her 30th birthday and plans to write about it for the magazine's readership. Plans are turned upside down when the solitary cottage is double booked with an American photographer, Mack. Neither is happy to share the space, but it is the only option until the ferry comes back in a week's time. Of course, we romance readers know that this forced proximity is the catalyst for a love affair. Both leads have their reasons for being in this far-flung place, and both have healing to do with the help of each other.

This book is a fun vacation romance with a cast of great island characters. While I am not quite so sure why everyone on the island is immediately very good friends with Cleo, I still enjoyed the enemies to friends to lovers story with a great setting.

Salvation island 🥹 Josie Silver did it again. Such a beautiful story of finding and loving yourself. We should all be our own best friends. The vacation romance was swoonworthy and I loved the ending.