A Single Breath

by Lucy Clarke

"From the celebrated author of Swimming at Night, a powerful and moving saga of one woman's struggle to overcome her husband's death and uncover his dark, mysterious past. Eva has only been married for eight months when her husband, Jackson, is swept to his death while fishing. Weighed down by confusion and sorrow, Eva decides to take leave of her midwifery practice in London and visit Jackson's estranged family in Tasmania with the hope of grieving together. Instead, she discovers that the man she loved so deeply is not the man she thought she knew. Jackson's father and brother reveal a dark past, exposing the lies her marriage was built upon. As Eva struggles to come to terms with the depth of Jackson's deception, she must also confront her growing attraction to Jackson's brother, Saul, who offers her intimacy, passion, and answers to her most troubling questions. Will Eva be able to move forward in life, or will she be caught up in a romance with Saul, haunted by her husband's past? Threading together beautiful, wild settings and suspenseful twists, A Single Breath is a gripping tale of secrets, betrayal, and new beginnings"--

• ISBN10: 1476750157
• ISBN13: 9781476750156
• Publish Date: 8 April 2014 (first published 13 March 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Touchstone Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Lianne]

I received an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2014/07/04/review-a-single-breath/

Suffice to say, I could not put this book down once I started reading it; forget class or sleep, I just needed to know what was going to happen next! The novel pretty much grabbed me from the first chapter and once the story got moving and Eva travelled back to Tasmania to visit her husband’s family and come to terms with her grief, it’s been one just one shocker after another (another reason why it was so difficult to put down; you tell yourself one more chapter and then there’s a shocker at the end of the chapter and it’s like “Well, I have to read the next chapter now!”).

Some of the developments were a little predictable and expected but the mystery, revelations and complications were entertaining to read and unravel. It could have gotten a bit overly-melodramatic but it wasn’t; the progression of events felt natural and the questions raised along the way were legitimate ones. Some of the decisions that some of the characters faced were handled in a very adult and reasonable manner, which was encouraging.

I really felt for Eva, her grief was quite raw and palpable and pretty realistic. And then to find out over the course of the novel what was really going on with her husband led her through such a topsy-turvy whirlwind of emotions, it’s a shock that she made it through without losing her mind completely. The rest of the characters in this novel were great; there were a few that could have easily had fallen flat or two-dimensional but there was more than meets the eye in both cases and added to the overall intrigue of the story. The location was also put into good use, an interesting choice to which the drama plays out. The ocean is always in the backdrop somehow, serving as a place of solace and a place to escape to.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading A Single Breath, it kept me wondering up to the very end. I highly recommend this book, it's the perfect summer read :)

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

When I was ten I repeated 5th grade. We were moving and had severe health issues. My parents felt more comfortable having my brother (who was in 4th) and I at the same school, I have always looked young for my age, no one would know, it was a new beginning. That is how I felt about A Single Breath, it was a new beginning.

While reading I was reminded of the movie While You Were Sleeping; a woman believes she is in love with her Prince Charming but behind the shinning facade lives a man unknown with a mismatched personality. In both cases the tarnished Prince is the true hero and acquires a bit of shoe-polish as the plot progresses.

The characters were developed and became wrapped up in their story but I found the story itself to be predictable and had suspicions from the start. It was still enjoyable and had a plot twist that kept my eyes moving as fast as the sun but because of the overall predictability it was a breezy read.

A Single Breath didn't produce fireworks but Lucy Clarke has a magic twist with words and for that reason alone made the novel enjoyable and worthwhile.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

[Leah]

I actually missed the boat on Lucy Clarke’s debut novel The Sea Sisters when it was released last year, I’m sure it’s on my Kindle somewhere, but I didn’t get a chance to read it, something I now regret as it was chosen as a Richard & Judy pick and was a massive, instant success. So I was quite pleased to receive an early copy of her second novel A Single Breath, and not wanting to miss out on Lucy’s fantastic writing, I knew I had to read it as quickly as I possibly could and a week off from work was just the perfect excuse I needed to pick the book up! And, boy, am I glad I read the novel because it was magnificent – twisty, captivating, and just when I thought it was all over, and no more secrets could be told, and what I’d thought wasn’t going to come true, bang! In came another secret, another reveal.

I have to be honest and say that A Single Breath reminded me of another novel, but since I cannot remember which novel this is, I can’t really compare the two as well as I might. But it did remind me of another book and I’m sure it will pop into my head which novel it is. It’s such a clever novel, that pretty much had me hooked from the word go, with the Prologue that introduces us to Jackson, Eva’s husband, and then we down to Jackson’s death, after being swept off the rocks where he was fishing by a freak wave. It knocks Eva off her feet, and the only thing she knows is that instead of being around her family, she wants to be around his family, so she heads off to his homeland of Tasmania, but the one thing she isn’t expecting is the cold welcome from his dad, Dirk, and his brother, Saul. Just why don’t they want Eva to spend any time in Wattleboon, where Jackson grew up.

I was sucked into A Single Breath almost immediately and I was definitely trying to work out Jackson, who was quite the enigma! I had my own theories as to what was going on, some that proved right, and some that I didn’t expect at all, so it was quite nice to see it all unravel and to see Eva discovering the truth about her husband, even if it wasn’t quite what she wanted to hear (no one wants to know their husband has lied to them, no matter the lie, am I right?) and I was sort of heartbroken on behalf of Eva that what she believed wasn’t necessarily the truth when it came to Jackson. I did, however, enjoy Saul and Eva’s friendship, if I can call, it that because it’s very tentative at first – Eva wants to know more about Jackson, Saul doesn’t want her to know, and so they’re very much avoiding the real questions for the first bit of the novel but once the trust comes into it, and they became closer, I very much enjoyed their interactions. The free-diving, the trips they took, the squid-tagging, it was nice that something good could come from something so bad. Saul sounded delightful, and it’s always nice to have a bit of eye-candy in books, although it was sort of awkward, since he was Jackson’s brother ya know?

My absolute favourite bit about A Single Breath (apart from the cracking twists) was the Tasmanian setting. I am a sucker for a novel set somewhere warm, beautiful and relatively unpopulated and quiet and Wattleboon sounded right up my alley. I couldn’t help but imagine myself going out swimming every morning and watching the sun rise and set, it all sounded so delightful. The twists in A Single Breath were superb and plentiful. Just when I thought there wasn’t anywhere else for the novel to go, it went there and it worked. And it worked without being trite or too over the top, which isn’t easy to do. Lucy Clarke is very much a talented writer – I flew through the novel, captivated by the writing, and the characters, and the beautiful setting. Third-person narratives don’t usually resonate with me as much as first-person but somehow Lucy Clarke managed it here and I raced through the book, desperate for poor Eva to catch a break and I did feel so bad that she had so much to discover about her husband. Part of me was sorta glad, though, because I really fell for Saul and Eva and felt they would work so well as a couple. (It was super confusing.) It was such a fascinating, enjoyable book, and all of the glowing blurbs are very true about Lucy as a writer, she’s amazing and I can’t wait to go back and devour The Sea Sisters because A Single Breath was an immense read.