This story captured my heart and it wasn’t because of the romance. Lydia very quickly snuck into my heart and carried me along with her as she tries to find where she belongs and who she is after the death of Freddie.

Living in a close-knit community and having her family close is a blessing as well as a burden. It’s not only her own grief that weighs her down… I loved the relationship she has with her sister Elle and mum Gwen and felt this gave her a strong foundation. Her colleagues at the Town Hall give her a sense of normality and stability and one event was brilliant in pushing Lyds forward. Her experience in Croatia is a much needed interlude – I could picture this so clearly! Even though she was away I thought it brought her much closer.

I’m not going to say much about her chance at her old life, except that I thought it was feasible and a brilliant concept (for reasons I can’t go into – no spoilers!).

The pace was perfect, switching it up and mellowing it out when the story needed it. I was invested with everything that happened. 🙂

I do enjoy Josie Silver’s writing style. The following is just one example:

“It’s as if a huge raven has landed on the roof and folded its wings down over the windows <snip>.”

Very visual for me and described the feelings perfectly.

The ending was exactly how I hoped it would be and left me with tears of happiness and a sense of completion.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird warmed my heart. It shows us that we can find our way through grief once we’ve learned to not only love ourselves but to trust in ourselves too.

I really enjoyed this story, it had everything. A cosy story at times with a bit of fantasy thrown. Happiness and sadness , joy and love and a conclusion to die for!!

This is a cross between Truly, Madly, Deeply, Sliding Doors and Love Actually! Much more of a ‘coming of age’ novel than that would suggest though and very tenderly written. Loved the ending about how the film should end. Good escapism.

Interesting take on how people cope with grief, well written. I really liked Lydia, and my heart was breaking for her and how she was living her life.

Lydia is getting ready for her birthday night out with her fiance when the worst possible thing happens: Freddie is killed in a car accident. How does Lydia move on when she's lost the love of her life? But when Lydia has the opportunity to see how her life would have turned out if Freddie hadn't died, should she live in this dream world or face the reality that he's gone?

I loved this novel. I cried most of the way through and will 100% be recommending it to everyone I know!

I loved the idea of this book but i just didn’t fall in love with it. Maybe I subconsciously built it up to read like another well known books with a similar story line. The main character looses her sweetheart in a accident, the story follows her through two different time lines, one where he’s still alive and the reality where is isn’t. I expected to cry so much at this book however it just didn’t cut it.

Lydia and Freddie have been together since school. They live and love together with a little help from another friend Jonas. Then on Lydia's 27th birthday Freddie is killed in a tragic accident and Jonas escapes with hardly a scratch.
Lydia , with the help of her mum and sister starts to pick up the pieces and live again but its difficult. She has sleeping tablets and all of a sudden she has a parallel life. One where Freddie is still alive and they have married and are on honeymoon. But is how Lydia would have wanted it to be.
Which life will she be happier in and will it be the one she chooses?

Josie Silver has once again destroyed and rebuilt my heart with her book. I really didn’t think she could get better than ‘One Day in December’ but she definitely outdid herself.

Lydia Bird loses her perfect fiancé on her 28th Birthday, but when she stumbles on an alternate life with him in she’s torn between which of her lives to spend her time.

It captured my heart from the beginning and I couldn’t put it down. Heartbreakingly beautiful story and beautiful writing. A well earned 5 stars

4.5 Stars

Goodness! Stepping into The Two Lives of Lydia Bird isn’t just an unexpected experience; it’s a journey of heartbreak, smiles and fragile struggles. It’s a story of unwarranted feelings of guilt, clinging to bygones and learning to let it go by facing the future with all one’s might. The author of One Day in December has an uncanny knack for pulling the reader in from word go and to appreciate Lydia’s two lives, you simply have to dive into the book, leaving all thoughts of what could happen behind. Why? Because Lydia has narrated her story with every unfeigned emotion possible at her perfectly imperfect pace of recovery.

“Travelling back and forth, visiting a place where my grief doesn’t exist, where extraordinary pain hasn’t irrevocably changed me … it was magnificent. Honestly, it was.”

Grief. We all deal with it in different ways. Lydia’s trying to safeguard her heart, so we tried hard not to judge how she overcame her long ineradicable nights. We can’t say the remedy delighted us but if the shoe fits… She doesn’t want to be coddled by those who are concerned for her well-being, just left alone—and not exactly in misery either, but in peace. Here, we have to point out that peace of mind without even mentioning one’s health has a high price, so could the remedy blunder her awakening hours. Let’s see.

“The price of dreaming about him is higher than I could ever hope to pay; it’s a higher price than anyone should ever have to pay.”

To say the prologue is interesting would be putting it mildly. We’re gifted with the whisper of a character who must have impressed Lydia because otherwise, where would her story have taken us. Ahh … Silver has so much in store for her readers, therefore all we can say is keep reading because we promise you will be delighted and amazed in equal measure.

“You’ve really surprised me, Freddie.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Your job, huh?”
“Making you happy.”

Nobody knows how you would feel or indeed react when you lose the love of your life. Lydia’s childhood sweetheart, Freddie, has been taken far too soon. Their seemingly normal life shaken beyond its core. Silver tells their story from when they were children so you’re taken from past to present throughout. To fully appreciate Lydia’s sorrow and the way she grieves, this was vital.

The relationships explored in this story were beyond amazing! Lydia’s life has truly been turned upside down and understandably her family and friends are waiting to pick up the pieces and nurse her through the heartbreak. What we truly loved about these characters was their unflinching honesty when interacting with Lydia. Silver has a great knack of giving the reader dialogue that seemed so achingly real and true to life.

“Grief is an odd thing. It’s mine and no one can do it for me, but there’s this whole supporting cast of silent actors around me waiting in the wings.”

We’re sure the subject matter of this story is one that may put many readers off but we urge you not to. This writer delicately balances high emotion and warm wit and at times we cried, but mostly smiled albeit with tear-stained cheeks. By the end of the story, we felt we’d lived through Lydia’s stages of grief. Our only complaint was we felt the ending was a tad rushed. An epilogue would have completed the story off perfectly and given us the closure we felt we deserved but maybe that’s just us wanting more Lydia. Maybe Lydia had given us enough. Bravo, Silver!

An excellent but very sad read, tissues required and time . Engaging, believable characters whose you become invested in and care about due to the excellent storytelling. Highly recommend.

This is my first Josie Silver book and I was really excited to delve into her writing however I really struggled with this book and was unable to finish it.

Although I like Silver's writing style I found that the two lives of Lydia was so blended together that I found myself really struggling to keep track of what was happening. I feel like the two could easily have been separated into chapters.

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me but I think I will try and pick up her other books.

Warning: don’t read this book in public unless you don’t mind people looking at you while your tears run unchecked down your face. It is a story of coming to terms with a sudden and tragic death, written beautifully and sympathetically. One of the best books I’ve read for ages. I’d give it six stars if I could.

Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. Since the age of 14, their names and lives have been entwined.

Until Lydia's 27th birthday, when Freddie dies in a tragic accident.

So now it's just Lydia. All she wants to do is hide indoors and sob until her eyes fall out. But what if Lydia could see Freddie again, live the life together that they'd always dreamt of?

As Lydia grieves in her own private way, she begins to take her first tentative steps into the world and starts to live - perhaps even to love - again.

But at what price does living this alternate life come at, and what if there's someone in her new life who wants her to stay?

After reading Silver's debut novel, One Day in December, and enjoying the steady ebb and flow of the story, I was happy to receive an ARC of her second title.
I found the premise interesting, even though a somewhat suspended imagination was required if you were to take it at face value. Having read some pretty “out there” books recently, this wasn’t one that was too much of a stretch.

I thought the characters were great and all likeable, and more importantly relatable throughout. I felt that, although the emotions were high in this story, the grief itself wasn’t overwhelming. Rather than becoming a miserable downer of a book it was more focussed on Lydia’s journey to live without Freddie, to move through her grief in her own way and to come out the other end.

Josie Silver’s book don’t require a huge amount of my concentration, as not a great deal happens within these stories, but that’s exactly why I pick them. Sometimes reading for review can be challenging and tiring, so it’s always nice to pick up some light relief. For me Silver ticks all those boxes with wonderful, witty writing and realistic characters. A easy read for those that like there romance simple.

This was an interesting take on the subject of grief, focussing on the death of Lydia's fiancé. We follow Lydia as she finds her way back to life with the help of her family and friends. The arc of the story is engaging and satisfying but there are a few details that jarred a little.

I think going in to this I expected it to be more of a romance than it actually was, ( probably my fault but that blurb on the cover didn't help) it's really much more of a book about how we deal and sometimes don't deal with grief and while it's done super well it just didn't quite work for me.

It really reminds me of P.S I love you, but in that book I totally fell in love with Jerry and Holly but in The Two Lives Of Lydia Bird it really doesn't let you fall for Freddy and Lydia mostly because as Lydia has lost Freddy she is desperate to hold on to any small moments she can grab and because Freddy doesn't have this experience he is just busy getting on with day to day life and it sort of distances them. I wish you'd got to see more of Lydia's life with Freddy before he died and maybe their romance would have made me feel more.

And then there's the other romance that isn't really a romance and would have been more believable if they had grieved together and it had brought them closer but instead they both grieve separately and we never really see all that much of them reconnecting.

So when she's in a certain place at the 80% mark i expected her to go somewhere to see someone and would have loved to have seen that budding romance but it never happens she ends up somewhere else and I was just disappointed of the missed chance to actually see a
bit romance. In the end the romance part sort of happens over phone conversations in the last 5% of the book which you don't really see or hear to much about so I found it unbelievable.

I also think it's much to slow paced 60% of this is Lydia grieving and doing the same things over and over which became quite repetitive to me.

The one thing I will say is the relationship between Elle and Lydia is great I loved there sister bond and there was a moment between them that had me welling up it was so good. I also loved the last 5% but ultimately it wasn't enough to make it more than a 2 star.

I think if you like the authors writing and you liked her first book ( which I haven't read ) you will probably like this. I'd also say don't go in expecting too much of a great love story because in my opinion you never really see a great love story or see memories of a great love story, to me this felt more a story about grieving, moving on and finding yourself.

Thank you so much to the publishers via netgalley for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest opinion.

When Lydia 's fiancé is killed in an accident, she is bereft. After isolating herself and taking sleeping tablets to find peace eventually she lives in two worlds, one awake and one asleep. Over time she realises her route to happiness. This is a really easy njoyable read, ideal for a poolside.

3.5 Stars

This story follows the life of Lydia Bird moving between two parallel universes: one where Freddie her fiancé died in a road accident and the other, Freddie is alive and together they are planning their future together.

Overall this is an enjoyable book, however the book seemed to lack the emotional impact you might think is there after the loss of your childhood sweetheart, and that lack of feeling let it down. With the subject of grief I expect to blub my eyes out but it left me dry eyed and unmoved. Plus the ending seemed rather abrupt and you could see coming a mile off.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

Beautifully written emotional book!
Lydia and Freddie are a couple due to get married when things take a tragic turn.
Lydia goes on a journey of self enlightenment and the tragedy is sensitively dealt with, so much so, I felt I was there with her, her family and friends, especially Johah, who is always there in the background, best friends to both Lydia and Freddie, and shared all her emotions.
I loved this book from start to finish it was unputdownable.

After reading, and thoroughly enjoying One Day In December, I was really looking forward to reading this. But I didn’t enjoy it.
The story starts with Lydia losing Freddie, the love of her life. As it progresses, she visits a parallel universe where Freddie is still alive.
I really struggled to get in to the story and was expecting more of a romance.

Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book as it really delves into what feelings we can go into when we loose someone. It’s sad at times but it shows life moves on and it can be a happy one