Title: The Seven Year Slip
Author: Ashley Poston
Publisher: Berkley, June 27, 2023
Pages: 348
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.
So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.
And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.
Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.
Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.
After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.
So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.
And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.
Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.
Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.
After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.
I don't know what it is about 2024. I have been proposed to this year, and yet somehow grief is sneaking into all of my books this year. And they're all very very beautiful. But here is me manifesting that the grief remain entirely fictional.
But Clementine is going through it. Grief is weird and it hits her in a big way, and she just sort of stops. She stops so much that she even slips backward in time, exactly 7 years if you hadn't guessed. And it's only then does she seem to start moving forward again. I love a dual timeline book, and this book was definitely that. Maybe even more than that when you get down to it. Maybe it's a Celtic knot of a timeline.
I love the magical realism in Ashley Poston's books. At least the 3 that I've now read. Check your trigger warnings for this book. I highly recommend it, but it deals with some heavy topics.
Ratings
Stars: 5/5
Spice: 1/5
