The Birch family have grown apart but they're spending Christmas together--really together. Doctor daughter Olivia has been treating an epidemic in Liberia that requires the entire family be quarantined for a week. Everyone has a secret--how long before they start slipping out?

This is an enjoyable book that will ring true to all readers.

The Birch family will be spending the Christmas holiday in quarantine, thanks to eldest daughter Olivia's recent relief work in Haag infested Liberia. She has returned, but must be in quarantine for seven days to insure that she is not carrying the disease back to England. This family has probably not spent that much time in each other's company EVER. Each person has secrets that are slowly revealed over the course of the seven days. It is particularly interesting to watch them become the family that they should have been all along, supportive and loving. Not a "Merry Christmas" read, but an enjoyable one nonetheless.

A dysfunctional family is quarantined due to the elder daughter's exposure to an Ebola-like disease. Fascinating and often amusing interaction among disparate personalities makes for an enjoyable read.. External factors add interest and complications to the plot.

This was a fantastic book. Loved how all the secrets came together by the end. I keep raving about it, but I have a hard time describing it without spoilers. You just have to read it is my fallback!

A good story that intertwines family and what skeletons we all have in the closet. Adding in the disease element makes for an interesting twist to the all too familiar too close for comfort feeling that the holidays can bring.

Loved this! A very good, satisfying read. Not as light as it first appears!

I expected, based on descriptions, "Seven Days of Us" to be a Brit-Rom-Com. The underlying tensions swirl among a family spending their Christmas holiday in isolation after the return of a daughter who served as a doctor in the zone of an Ebola-like virus. While there was some comedy, it was much more socially aware and deeper than I expected. Told in the five alternating voices (father, mother, two adult daughters, and the father's as-yet-unknown illegitimate son), the novel covers the days surrounding the Christmas holiday. Each individual views the quarantine differently, which quickly shows their personalities and how the family interacts. As the story unfolds, those tension lines stretch and bend, with some breaking and others repairing after years of assumptions are challenged. The arrival of the birth-son from America shakes the family's foundation, especially since he is now 'exposed' and must complete the quarantine with them. While to doesn't have the rom-com "all works out in the end" smiley ending, the reader is left knowing that all seem to be in better standing with eachother and moving forward together well. Sounds schmaltzy, but really, a quite enjoyable novel.
With thanks to the author, Francesca Hornak, and the Publisher, Berkeley Publishing Group, for the advanced reader copy.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

When I first read the description of "Seven Days of Us" I knew that I had to read this book. A family who isn't close is now forced to spend 7 days locked up in a house together? I was excited! This is most people's worse nightmare. The story itself revolves around; Olivia, Andrew, Emma, Phoebe, George, and Jesse.

Olivia just came back from Africa helping people who had Hagg, a deadly virus that is spreading very fast. Olivia is planning to be in quarantine with her family during the holidays. Andrew just found out that he has a son, and that son is in town. Emma just found out she has cancer. Phoebe and George are engaged. Jesse is said son of Andrew. These six people are about to have their life tossed around like crazy. Their world as they know it is about to drastically change.

The book is slow and not an edge of your seat book. It took me a lot longer to finish than a normal book would, but it was still worth reading. Hearing about the lives of these characters, and even though they are related, their lives are very different from one another, made for an interesting read. A lot of secrets, lies, and drama happens throughout the book. A last note; I think this book would make for a great movie.

This novel by Francesca Hornak focuses on a family that is forced to spend 7 days in quarantine together, at their dilapidated country home, when oldest daughter Dr. Olivia Birch returns home from Africa after volunteering as a health worker treating an incredibly deadly infectious disease. Yes, the book is just as complicated and twisty as that first sentence is.

Patriarch Andrew is a former war correspondent turned snarky restaurant reviewer, who is trying to hide the newly discovered fact that he fathered a child in Lebanon who was given up for adoption and is now seeking him out. Matriarch Emma is hiding the fact that she's been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Olivia is hiding her forbidden relationship with fellow aid-worker turned disease victim Sean Coughlan and the possibility that she may be developing symptoms of the disease herself. Phoebe, the shallow younger daughter, isn't really hiding anything, except a dissatisfaction with fiance George. George, who has never told Phoebe that he loves her despite being together for five years and recently proposing, is a homophobe who perhaps protests too much. Enter Jesse, the long-lost son, who runs into, and has revealing encounters with, different characters without knowing he is connected to them. It all comes together when first George and then Jesse join the family in quarantine.

Andrew describes the situation as "pure telenovela" and he isn't wrong. This novel required a bit too much suspension of disbelief for me. The characters also weren't particularly likeable. This one was only "okay" for me.

A great light read about a family forced into quarantine for seven days. As the week progresses, so too does our understanding of the characters and how they've been shaped into the people they are. There's someone for every reader in this book - someone with whom you can related, someone who makes you batty, someone who changes before your eyes.

Imagine being with all your family members for seven days, one full week, unable to come and go as you please. Stuck is the word you're thinking about right now. Even if you love them all, "warts and all," seven consecutive days without leaving the house. Any family would get a little testy. So it goes with the family in "Seven Days of Us." Olivia, the eldest daughter and a doctor, returns from Liberia during Christmas, where she had been treating its people with a highly infectious virus. In order to visit her family they all had to undergo the quarantine. Dad, a former war correspondent, now restaurant review columnist is bright and snarky. Mom, Emma just wants everyone to get along and cooks constantly so she can forget the lump she found under her and is most likely cancerous. She decided not to tell anyone until after the quarantine. Then Phoebe, the late twenties, daddy's girl who thinks of nothing but herself, and fashion. Sounds like fun, right? Oh, it gets better, they get surprise visitors; like a son Dad fathered in Lebanon twenty odd years ago but never knew he had. (He kind of suspected though.) There's lots more, but I'll save it for you to discover. Fun and some serious stuff too. Just overall a very good book.

I am reviewing this book for the October digital issue of RT Magazine

love a good dysfunctional family, and I love a well written book about said dysfunctional family even more. I liked every single character in this book, they all had issues, but they were all like-able in their own way. Okay, well, one of them is questionable. haha!

I saw some blurbs on the back of this book saying the book was hilarious, I must have missed that part. I found this book to be emotional, heart-warming, sad, and realistic. Families suffer with these issues every day, heck my own family has had some of these problems. I really enjoyed this book, it was definitely a "just one more chapter" type of read. I was drinking coffee at 9 p.m. just so I could stay up late to read it. This was a well-developed story. One that I will continue to recommend to readers.

This book definitely touches on a lot of sensitive subjects, P.T.S.D., Homosexuality, infidelity, and life threatening illnesses. It basically focuses on how people settle for things, instead of going after what they truly want out of life. Life is too short guys, tomorrow is never a guarantee. Always do and love what your heart wants. AND Family is everything! No matter how dysfunctional they are.

I didn’t expect to like Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak as much as I did. It was recommended to me as a book for those of us who enjoyed Four Weddings & a Funeral and Love Actually and I can see why! Hornak did a great job of entwining several characters’ stories and meshing them together in a way that was entertaining and ultimately touching.

     The characters in this story will draw readers in. I felt like I knew the Birch family and therefore cared about them and the outcome of their various…situations, yes, we will call them situations! While I liked certain Birches better than others, Hornak managed to create dynamic characters and by end of the story, I even liked the unlikable ones. Mom Emma just wants all of her family under one roof for the holidays and is looking forward to celebrating at Weyfield Hall, her childhood home. One would think Christmas at an English country estate would be fabulous, but Weyfield Hall is no longer as grand as it sounds and they will actually be on quarantine for a week due to her doctor daughter returning home from Africa after battling an epidemic disease.

     Dad Andrew is not the warmest of fathers, at least with his oldest daughter, Olivia. For that reason and the fact that he took his wife for granted, he was not my favorite of the Birch family. However, events transpire throughout the story which change how every Birch family member sees each other and themselves. There are many awkward moments and some painful ones, but in the end, they are closer. Andrew has several revelations and is much more likable by the end of the book. Olivia and her sister Phoebe are closer. Olivia learns to “loosen up” a little—for the better. Phoebe grows up a bit and starts to realize there is more to life than planning a wedding. I won’t spoil the rest, you will have to read it for yourself!

Olivia Birch is a serious, dedicated, doctor coming home from a stint treating victims of the terrible Haag virus in Liberia. Subject to a seven day quarantine on reentry to Britain, she and her family will be holed up in her mother’s aging family estate for seven days over Christmas.

The quarantine participants include Olivia, father Andrew (one-time Lebanon war correspondent turned snarky restaurant columnist); high-born mother Emma (who discovers a cancerous lump but doesn’t want to spoil Christmas); party girl Phoebe (the sister who has just become engaged to a man nobody else cares for); and lastly Jesse - Andrew’s surprise offspring from a one night stand in Lebanon. Jesse serves as a kind of Greek Chorus looking in from the outside and moving the plot along with subconsciously deft manipulations.

Each chapter of the book covers a single day; each section within the chapter is a timestamped story told from one of the five characters perspectives during that day evolving the plot. And what a plot! Ridiculous coincidences abound but serve only to tighten the strings that stitch the players together and are therefore somehow completely believable.

The book is simultaneously serious and funny as we watch a family that has become stale and distant in its regular interactions rediscover the importance of family and what is important to each of them personally. Artfully done and genuinely fun to read!

Review published at the Dew on release date. http://dewonthekudzu.com

A family forced into a week of quarantine during the holidays comes to terms with the fact that they have all contributed to the state of relations of the group and that this is the exact opportunity for the healing to begin.

Faced with many hurdles - a possibly deadly prognosis, a stranger's visit, lost love, secrets revealed - the four of them have to find a way to get on common ground to band together for the survival of the family.

Seven Days of Us was fun and insightful. Francesca Hornak set the stage by quarantining a family in an old English countryside manor. Throw in a long lost son, a cancer diagnosis, and a gay finance and you have a topsy-turvey tale of family love. Although I enjoyed this novel, it was a little slow at getting to the point, and the conclusion was a little to happy/sappy for my tastes.

At one point in Seven Days of Us, Andrew, the somewhat snarky and elitist patriarch of the Birch family, equates all of the drama affecting his family with a popular British soap opera. But then he realizes it's even crazier than all that.

"Never mind EastEnders—this was pure telenovela."

He's not quite wrong. In her debut novel, Francesca Hornak throws more issues and crises at the Birch family, more secrets thought buried, than you can even imagine. It's like multiple Jodi Picoult novels meshed together without the ethical issues her characters have to consider. And yet despite all of it, you can't help but feel sympathy for some of the characters, anger for others—you want to shake some of them just to get them to say what they need to—but you find yourself moved by what is happening to them.

It's been a long while since the Birches eldest daughter Olivia has come home for Christmas. She always has obligations which keep her away—or are they excuses? But this year, after a stint treating a major disease in Liberia, she must be quarantined for seven days, so she and her family are going to spend it together, cozy as anything, at the family's seen-better-days country estate. They're not allowed to go anywhere or see anyone, and to top it off, wi-fi and cell coverage is spotty at best.

Andrew, a haughty former war correspondent-turned-restaurant critic, would rather be anywhere but stuck with his family for seven days, especially once he receives an email he has subconsciously been expecting for a while now. His wife, Emma, who once shelved dreams of her own career in order to raise their children, can't wait to spend the week nurturing both of her children, especially since it will keep her mind off a secret of her own.

Younger daughter Phoebe can't concentrate on much more than the excitement of her recent engagement. She wants the perfect wedding, the perfect life, and she's not happy that her older sister can't focus on anything but the disease in Africa. It's not all that's important, after all! Olivia lives in constant trepidation that she might test positive for the disease and put her family in danger, and she can't seem to focus on her family's first world problems. But all the while she is haunted by a decision she made in Liberia, and wonders how it will affect her future.

As the family unearths old arguments and wounds, and inflicts new ones on each other, the arrival of two unexpected guests throw everyone and everything completely off-kilter. It seems like the perfect recipe for a dysfunctional holiday—but the stakes could be higher than nearly anyone realizes.

"This was why she despised secrets. When they emerged, as they always did, they opened up a whole labyrinth of other unknowns."

About halfway through Seven Days of Us, I wasn't sure if I was enjoying it, even though I was hooked on the story. The characters really weren't likable, and I just didn't understand why no one would talk to each other and say what they're feeling. I get the whole British stoic stiff-upper-lip thing, but come on. But the more I read, the more I found myself immersed in all of the drama, and even if some of the problems the characters faced were all too familiar, it didn't matter.

That's mainly because Hornak made her characters very real, despite all the drama swirling around them. You've seen these people in real life—heck, some of them may even be your own family members, with or without the British accents. The book is sappy and a little silly but it's ultimately warm and sweet. While there's no way I could spend seven days quarantined with my family, after reading this book I just had to call everyone, just to make sure everyone was okay.

If you like a healthy helping of melodrama along with your family dysfunction, definitely pick up Seven Days of Us. See if you agree that it's a little like a telenovela.

NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

British author Francesca Hornak, who writes for the Sunday Times Style, has written the next holiday classic! Physician Olivia Birch is returning from Africa to spend Christmas with her family. And, as lovely as that sounds, the upcoming reunion has a couple problems. To begin with, Olivia has spent the past months treating a deadly virus and her family will need to remain in quarantine together for seven days. The key word here being, together. Olivia, her self-absorbed sister Phoebe and her parents will be celebrating the yuletide at her mother’s family pile in the country. As the seven days of Christmas drag on, the family’s secrets are revealed in a number of ways both heartbreaking and touchingly humorous.

This is a modern day I Captured the Castle, please don’t wait until Christmas to read this.