Title: One Last Second
Author: Sam Vickery
Genre: Literary Fiction | Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Bookouture (15 July 2020)
Buy Links: Amazon | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play
Blurb
I never expected to be doubted, but if I can’t make them believe me, what then? I sit here beside her stroking her tiny hands as she sleeps and she looks so perfect. It never crossed my mind that something would be wrong with my sweet girl and I’d be powerless to do anything to help her.
When Madeline’s six-year-old daughter Tilly collapses one Sunday night, Madeline’s world is turned upside down. Racing to the hospital, she imagines the worst scenarios in her mind, but when they arrive the doctors say that Tilly is fine.
Madeline’s ex-husband Adam and her best friend Laura think Madeline is being overprotective, that Tilly fainted because of her fussy eating. But Madeline is sure something is seriously wrong with Tilly. She can feel it. And she believes that a mother’s instinct is never wrong.
As Madeline embarks on a desperate journey to have Tilly re-diagnosed, taking her in and out of hospital, Adam and Laura begin to wonder if Tilly would be safer in Adam’s care. Madeline just wants to keep her daughter safe, but the harder she pushes the closer she comes to losing her…
One Last Second is an emotional reminder of just how far a mother will go to protect her child. Readers of Jodi Picoult, Diane Chamberlain and Kate Hewitt will never be able to forget this heartbreaking and beautiful story.
Review
Madeline knew something was not quite right with Tilly when she was a young baby, taking her to the doctors frequently but always the tests came back that there was nothing wrong. This continued as she got older. Now split from her husband Adam a year ago things seem to have ramped up, sickness, fainting, bruising easily and wetting the bed, everyone points it to Madeline being soft on Tilly, or that it is psychological. But a mother almost always knows when something is not right with their child.
This is a heartbreaking and sometimes frustrating story of Madeline’s turbulent journey trying to do the best for her six-year-old daughter when all odds and people seem against her trying to get a diagnosis and get Tilly well again.
I wanted to shout to Adam, Laura and even the doctors, telling them to listen to the concerns, stop brushing Madeline’s concerns off so easily.
I was hooked from the beginning, it was emotional in so many ways, having children and reading about poorly children always strikes a chord with me.
Sam Vickery penned a fantastic and true to life read and I will definitely be looking out for more from her in the future.
Author Bio
Sam Vickery is an English author who loves gritty, emotional stories that can make you sob. As a child, she was forever getting in trouble for being caught with her nose in a book, and these days are no different. She lives on the south coast of England with her husband, two children and a cat that thinks it’s a dog.
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