Today I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for Six Days, the brand new novel from Dani Atkins. My thanks to publisher Aria Fiction for the advance copy of the book and the invite to join the tour: Here’s what it’s all about:
Release Date: 14 April 2022
Publisher: Aria Fiction
About the Book
Two people. One love story. Six days.
He loves me… He loves me not… He loves me…
Gemma knows that she and Finn are destined to be together. They are soulmates. But then, on their wedding day, he never arrives at the church.
Gemma is convinced Finn wouldn’t abandon her like this, even though he has disappeared once before. But back then he had a reason. She feels sure something terrible has happened, but no one else is convinced. Even the police aren’t concerned, telling Gemma most people who disappear usually turn up in a week… assuming they want to be found, that is.
For the next six days Gemma frantically searches for Finn, even though every shocking revelation is telling her to give up on him. Before long, even she begins to doubt her own memories of their love.
How long can she hold on to her faith in Finn if everyone is telling her to let him go?
My Thoughts
Well this book is quite the emotional rollercoaster. How do you think you would react if it looked as though you had been stood up at the altar. That’s certainly how it appears to the family and friends of Gemma, the bride to be who suddenly becomes the bride who wasn’t. All the signs are pointing towards fiance Finn having done a runner – and to be fair to Gemma’s friends, he has form. So why is Gemma so absolutely certain that he would never have left her? Well, that’s exactly what we are set to discover throughout the course of the next six days of Gemma’s life in which she tries to find answers as to Finn’s whereabouts.
The book is a kind of dual timeline affair. A good proportion of the story is set in the present as Gemma tries in vain to find Finn, or even to just get the police to take her seriously. They, like everyone else, think he has just got cold feet and are reluctant to investigate, especially as all the signs are there that this was a deliberately planned disappearance. And yet … by dipping back into Gemma and Finn’s past, Dani Atkins gives us a proper fly-on-the-wall look into their private lives, shows us those quiet, private moments, that make us want to believe in Gemma and her unwavering uncertainty about Finn. There were times when I was torn, when some of Finn’s actions, and reactions, seemed to point to the inevitable, but Gemma is no wallflower, and her defiance and determination really did make me believe there was something afoot. The author has done a brilliant job of sowing the seeds of doubt, but also giving us that underpinning sense of hope that Gemma also feels.
I really liked the characters in this book. Gemma is a strong woman, not perfect by any stretch and not even always in the right when it comes to how she handles herself when it comes to Finn. It is one of those meetings that sits somewhere between a classic meet-cute and hate at first site scenario, but there is something charismatic about Finn, as well as something ever so slightly aloof about him, that makes it slightly easier to believe he would just run away. The development of their friendship and relationship is really well handled, with just the right emotional balance, giving us a better insight into both of them as characters. It’s not a relationship that is all plain sailing, and there are plenty of trials along the way, but none quite as testing as these particular six days.
I must admit I don’t read much relationship based fiction, but this had a healthy thread of mystery about it in amongst all the more emotional aspects of the story. It wasn’t the central focus of the book necessarily, in spite of appearances, or disappearances as it goes. This was much more an exploration of the bond between Gemma and Finn, how it formed and how it was shaped by the emotional scars of their past. There were more than the odd one or two lump in the throat moments of poignancy, and those scenes in which her friends and family finally get on board with Gemma’s certainty, really strike a chord.
Does Gemma get her happy ending? Well, I suggest you read the book to find out. This is my first book by this author, but if you are looking for a fun, fresh, often emotional, engaging character led story, this is one I can definitely recommend.
About the Author
Dani Atkins is an award-winning novelist. Her 2013 debut Fractured (published as Then and Always in North America) has been translated into sixteen languages and has sold more than half a million copies since first publication in the UK. Dani is the author of four other bestselling novels, two of which, This Love and A Sky Full of Stars, won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award, in 2018 and 2022 respectively. Dani lives in a small village in Hertfordshire with her husband, one Siamese cat and a very soppy Border Collie.
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