I don't love short stories, but I love Lily King. This worked so well for me. Each story felt like it had SO MUCH depth in such few pages. I don't know how she does it. There are characters that I only met for a few pages, but will likely remember forever, and that is not hyperbole.

I don’t usually read short stories, but I read Writer’s and Lover’s last year and I was extremely impressed so knew I had to make an exception for Lily King’s new book.

Five Tuesday’s in Winter had the same sharp writing I enjoyed in Writer’s and Lover’s. Some of the short stories were more memorable than others, but overall I really enjoyed this book.

𝐒𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫, 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫, 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐢𝐭. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐨𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

Lily King has created characters who sort through complicated emotions, feelings that roil and sometimes settle so deep they just can’t be expressed, in this collection. People are left behind, children live in the remains of broken marriages, social class divisions shadow moments, but too there is the thrill of teens on the verge of young adulthood. Sometimes kids are dealing with situations too heavy for the young.

In the first story, Creature, teenager Carol is hired as a live in babysitter for the wealthy Pike family. Living in the enormous mansion she plays at independence from her parents fighting, tries to forget the small apartment she and her mother live in and can loosen her worries over the problems of her father. With the romantic novel Jane Eyre occupying space in her mind, and making her own money, she’s ripe for “trying things out”. When Hugh arrives, order is disrupted and things get exciting. How much of a grown up education can she handle?

Five Winters in Tuesday a single father, bookseller Mitchell finds more life inside his books than in other people. His daughter Paula longs for him to be more involved, kinder with their customers but it is Kate, his employee, that brings more life into the store. Paula finds a friend in her, a woman who can help her with things no girl wants to turn to their father for, she fills the void her absent mother left in her wake. Can Mitchell change, should he?

When in Dordogne it is the summer of 1986 and a boy distant from his much older parents forms a close bond with young men hired to care for him while his parents head to France to help his father ‘get better’ from what ails him. Through the antics of Ed and Grant, their teasing and joy, he falls in love with a brotherhood he has never had. If only they could stay forever.

North Sea Oda takes her daughter Hanne to an island on the North Sea but it is costing her money she doesn’t really have after her husband Fritz’s death. Neither of them want the vacation, and yet here they are, miserable. If only they could stop pushing each other away and remember Hanne’s father, their deep loss. Hanne no longer as willing to share her joys with her mother, the two drifting into distance, Oda stunned by the circumstances her husband left them in. Will they comfort one another? Other stories follow, each as engaging as the last. People aching through the vanishings of loved ones, turns and splits of fate, reeking with disasters love causes, be it with a partner or family. Motherhood and the how it dominates every crevice of your life, the struggling desire to create while consumed by caring for others. The story that touched me the most, left a lump of feeling in my throat, was Waiting for Charlie. An aging grandfather visits his granddaughter at the hospital bedside after a terrible accident, one that has left her body in ruins. They are now, in a sense, alike- unfairly. It’s such a short story but it ripped my heart out. Lily King writes about the storms of our emotions, so often impossible to understand and find direction when you’re in the midst of it. Well done.

Published November 9, 2021

Grove Atlantic

Beautiful short stories that stand alone, but also weave together in a beautiful tapestry of life. Lily King writes seamlessly about a wide range of people, all different ages.

This was my first book by this author and I really enjoyed her distinctive writing style. Even though I do not usually read short stories, I found that these had a lot of character depth and I felt like I connected with the characters and their journeys.

There is a melancholic feeling throughout the book and some stories cut a bit deeper than others. I was particularly impressed with 'North Sea' whilst 'When in Dordogne' had a twist I did not foresee. 'Hotel Seattle' and 'Creature' dealt with heavy topics ( TW cheating and abuse.).

I was going through a reading slump when I started this book and I found it was perfect to immerse in, one story at a time. A very satisfying read with a gorgeous cover to boot.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

There were several short stories dealing with love, loss, sadness, realizations and more. Reading this book was a bit like gambling with how I would feel at the end as some had happier endings than others. Overall a good compilation of short stories.

Five Tuesdays in Winter is a collection of short stories. Lily King, author of Writers & Lovers as well as Euphoria (both of which I loved), created distinct stories with their own flair. The characters were complex and left me wanting to know more about how their lives turned out. Short stories are great when reading time is hard to come by, but I prefer King’s full length novel writing over her short stories.

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I love short stories, but it's incredibly rare for me to enjoy every single story in a collection without feeling that a few stories fell short. Lily King's Five Tuesdays in Winter was that rare thing for me: a collection without a single dud. I was moved by every single one of these these stories in one way or another.

In Five Tuesdays in Winter, we meet characters in transition, at their most vulnerable. These characters are deep in the throes of grief or unrequited love, coming of age, dealing with divorce or parenthood, facing a loss of innocence. These stories are all about love, in one way or another, and they are heartbreaking and hopeful, honest and raw. Lily King is such a special writer, one who evokes emotion effortlessly in her prose.

A few of the standouts for me (although as I said, I loved all of the stories):

"Five Tuesdays in Winter," in which a single father falls in love with his only employee at the bookstore he owns. I smiled my way through this entire story; it was so innocent, tender, and sweet, with such endearing characters.

"When in the Dordogne," a coming-of-age story in which a lonely teenager is left in the care of two college-age boys, who are house-sitting while his parents are in France for the summer. This is a story about first love, and about how people can come into your life and change it forever. The ending, with its notes of nostalgia, was pitch-perfect.

"North Sea," which finds a mother and her teenage daughter heading off for a long-awaited vacation. The loss of their husband and father feels like a physical presence between them, and the mother hopes to use the vacation to draw the daughter out of her insular grief. This is a raw, devastating story about trauma and healing.

In short, Five Tuesdays in Winter is a stunning collection of stories, solidifying Lily King as a must-read author for me. Thank you to Grove Press and NetGalley for my digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

EXCERPT: Taken from the title story, Five Tuesdays in Winter -

Mitchell's daughter, who was twelve, accused him of loving his books but hating his customers. He didn't hate them. He just didn't like having to chat with them or lead them to very clearly marked sections - if they couldn't read signs, why were they buying books? - while they complained that nothing was arranged by title. He would have liked to have a bouncer at the door, a man with a rippled neck who would turn people away or quietly remove them when they revealed too much ignorance.

ABOUT 'FIVE TUESDAYS IN WINTER': Told in the intimate voices of unique and endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller's unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface, a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl's loss of innocence at the hands of her employer's son becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in his granddaughter's hospital room. Romantic, hopeful, brutally raw, and unsparingly honest, some even slipping into the surreal, these stories are, above all, about King's enduring subject of love.

MY THOUGHTS: Every now and then I come across an author who can take the every day, the mundane, and transform it into something beautiful. Lily King is one such author. Her stories, all but one, enchanted me.

The emotions of her characters, their reactions to the situations in which they find themselves, is refreshingly real: from the sulky teenage daughter of recently separated parents to the bookseller who finally recognizes the feelings he has for his assistant, these are people we could know or who could live in our town.

My absolute favourite from this collection is Waiting for Charlie, the story of a grandfather sitting at the bedside of his gravely injured granddaughter, closely followed by Five Tuesdays in Winter, Hotel Seattle, and Mansard. The only story I disliked was The Man at the Door.

1. Creature ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. Five Tuesdays in Winter ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
3. When in the Dordogne ⭐⭐⭐⭐
4. North Sea ⭐⭐⭐.5
5. Timeline ⭐⭐⭐⭐
6. Hotel Seattle ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
7. Waiting for Charlie ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
8. Mansard ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
9. South ⭐⭐⭐⭐
10. The Man at the Door ⭐⭐

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#FiveTuesdaysinWinter #NetGalley

I: @lilybooks @groveatlantic

T: @lilykingbooks @GroveAtlantic

#contemporaryfiction #crime #domesticdrama #familydrama #historicalfiction #romance #shortstories #sliceoflife

THE AUTHOR: Lily King grew up in Massachusetts and received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her M.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. After grad school she took a job as a high school English teacher in Valencia, Spain and began writing her first novel. Eight years, ten more moves all over the US, and many bookstore, restaurant and teaching jobs later, that novel was published.

In 1995 she met a guy named Tyler at her friend Bernardine’s house in Belmont, Mass. They married in 1998. They have two daughters and two dogs and live in Portland, Maine.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Grove Atlantic via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

Thank you to Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!
Five Tuesdays in Winter is a collection of 10 short stories written by Lily King. I was immediately intrigued by this book after loving Writers & Lovers. Just as in Writers & Lovers, the writing in Five Tuesdays in Winter was absolutely beautiful and melodic despite the difficult topics that are discussed. I love Lily King's writing style, but I personally realized through reading this one that perhaps short stories are not my thing. I felt as soon as I began to bond with the characters and story, it was over! 3.5 stars for me.

My first experience with Lily King's writing was last year, when Writers & Lovers brought me out of the reading slump I was experiencing in the early days of the pandemic.

Not only was the book good enough to get me out of my slump and out of my head, it ended up being one of my favorite books of the year.

When I heard about this book I was all over it, and unsurprisingly I loved this collection of short stories.

I ended up listening to it over a week and a half, treating myself to a story every night. This is a book to be savored. Lily King's writing is stunning and as with Writers & Lovers I find myself wanting to hang on to every word. Descriptions of the most mundane things are poetic, and her characters jump off the page.

Really, I knew it after reading only one of her books, but Lily King is officially an auto buy author for me and I'm so thankful that these short stories came at a time where I've only had short stretches in a day for reading.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Libro.fm, & Grove Press for the ARC.

FIVE TUESDAYS IN WINTER is the new short story collection from Lily King. I loved her novel WRITERS AND LOVERS which published last year, so was excited to read this one! I definitely prefer novels to short stories in general, but there’s no arguing that Lily King is an extremely talented writer. I was also impressed with how many of the stories in this collection are written from a male perspective! My favorite was the title story, “Five Tuesdays in Winter.” If you enjoy King’s writing or are looking for shorter stories to read as we get into the busyness of the holidays, pick this one up!

<b>Five Tuesdays In Winter</b> is a collection of ten short stories by Lily King.  The first four in the collection had a child or adolescent as the central character and I suspected this might be a theme carried throughout the book but it really wasn't.    The stories were in no way connected, set in different times and places,  most were heavily character driven whilst a couple were more plot driven.

Typically when I read a  collection of short stories I find there are some I really like and others I'm not so fond of.     Usually I hope to have more of the former and not too many of the latter.   I'm pleased to say this was the case with Five Tuesdays In Winter.    The writing was good and I enjoyed the way they all seemed to focus on relationships of one sort or another.    Some of these were physical in nature, some where one character was infatuated with another, some where long forgotten infatuations rose to the surface and resulted in disappointment.    I enjoyed the ones where family relationships were at the forefront - mothers and daughters; fathers and daughters; mother, father and son; brothers and sisters;  mother, son and daughter; grandfather and grandaughter.     In other words relationships of all shapes and sizes.  Relationships both good and bad, successful or otherwise. 

Being perfectly honest I enjoyed the two novels I've read by this author over her collection of short stories but this is probably more a reflection of my personal reading preferences.   One or two of these stories could, I'm sure, have been the basis for good full length novels.    My personal favourites were Waiting for Charlie and Timeline, whilst my least preferred was the final story in the collection, The Man At The Door.   Ironically, though I said it was my least favourite, it contained were passages I really Ioved.   Passages about writing and the writing process which reminded me fondly of her novel Writers and Lovers.

My thanks to the author, to Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for the opportunity of reading this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review which it was my pleasure to provide.

3.5 stars on Goodreads

incredible. i am not the hugest anthology fan, but i thought of reading Lily King’s newest in hopes of her wonderful writing. i wasn’t disappointed at all. it’s masterful, such a perfect collection of short stories. her writing flows so splendidly. every single story felt deeply riveting; it feels as if not a lot is going on but the surroundings and the feelings each character endures is heavily perceptible in the back of a readers mind. it’s masterful, such a perfect anthology.
i fell in love with writers and lovers and took my chance with five tuesdays in winter, and i am so happy i did. i cannot wait to read everything Lily King publishes from now on, but also, i have to start Euphoria soon!
4/5 stars!

Five Tuesdays in Winter is both the title of this collection and the name of one of the short stories in the collection (one of my favorites, in fact). But it also made me imagine the perfect way to savor these short stories, curled up under a blanket on cold winter weeknights, wanting a short escape into a different place or a different life. 

I'm not usually a short story reader. I usually figure that for the investment it takes to get to know a story's setting and a set of interesting characters, I want to get more than a few pages for it. Fortunately, the strength of Lily King's writing brings you immediately into the story and its characters, not wasting any time. For such little introduction, the settings still feel immersive and the characters unique. There's a teenager babysitter on the Atlantic Coast, a grumpy bookseller struggling to accept love, two estranged former college roommates meeting in a Seattle hotel for some unfinished business, and many more. 

With such different stories, there's probably something in this collection for everyone, but not all of the stories will be equally interesting. Some stories I'd already completely forgotten by the time I got to the end of the collection, but several of them stayed vivid, worth remembering and revisiting.

Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Press for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a wonderful collection of short stories!! There were a couple I didn't care for, but most of them I really liked. I had read a previous book by Lily King and wasn't that impressed; but I'm glad to say with these stories, I can understand why so many people love her writing.

I was sorry to see the book end!

happy pub day, lily king! consider me converted to a short story gal! I’ve had trouble in the past becoming invested in short story collections due to character turnover and hit or miss stories for me. that was not an issue here..
the writing was beautiful and raw with characters battling such powerful emotions like grief, angst, love. my mood flowed with each story — it was all such a rich slice of life. the diversity of relationships represented (sibling, romantic, parental) was also wonderful. felt like there was a story for every reader to connect to. adding writers and lovers to my tbr right now!

Happy publishing day to this beautiful book. This is a book of short stories from best selling author Lily King. I love King’s novels and this book was no different, it was filled with complex but endearing short stories that I simply didn’t want to end. Would recommend for a cozy read or even a holiday gift for a loved one, there is something for everyone in here!

Thank you to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC!

Thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Having loved Writers & Lovers by Lily King, I had a lot of hope for this collection and I am happy to say it did not disappoint.

As usual with short stories, there are some I loved more than others (particularly, I think I liked the first half of them more than the rest) but all had characters I could picture very easily and cared for in such a short time, and that is the sign of great short stories in my book.

I found the writing to be beautiful yet simple. The stories all explore different dynamics between people (mother-daugthter, friends, romantic relationships and more) and I am generally fascinated by that every day watching everything around me so it worked for me. The stories mostly explored different kinds of issues and traumas that people go through, making them very relatable and real.

So if you're usually interested in strangers and their lives (in a non-creepy way of course), you would probably enjoy this book too!

I just couldn’t get into this book, despite how much I tried. I pushed through and finished it, however I just did not love it. A collection of short stories, which to me just didn’t quite connect. They touch on love, loss and discovery. Characters are all different ages, personalities and backgrounds. Their personal stories are beautiful, however to me it was difficult to get wrapped up in each of the individual stories. The writing, as always with Lily King is done impeccably, however the stories just fell short to me.

Thank you to netgalley for my advanced reader copy!