It was like a woman’s Sunday supplement crossed with Take a Break magazine, but all the time saved from being trashy by the elegance of the writing, and of course the safety of fiction. There can’t be too many books with an event like that so high on the billing. Taking two young children to see their newly dead father in a funeral home. There is a concentration on feelings, and a determination to delve into harrowing events and tease out the individual atoms that make up human misery. Like walking into a minimally furnished room and admiring it because of its clean uncluttered lines. One of the most striking things about this novel was its clarity: the calm, focussed way it was written. By the end it is like listening to a mobile phone conversation: vaguely annoying for no particular reason. The characters are not compelling - they are, if anything, irritatingly self-abssorbed - and the pace is, well, non-existent, but it hardly promises to be a tense thriller.Ultimately this novel gives little to its readers. It is a poor description for a review, but then I struggle to understand quite what it was about the book that started to grate. Unfortunately the characters and their predicament is as compelling as any copywriters's copy - professional but not interesting (perhaps it is worthy of speculation on whether the author's other profession is also responsible).A confession: 'One Moment, One Morning' is undeniably a 'woman's book' (although I find the term mildly offensive) and I am a man.

The author's other career, as a copywriter, is probably responsible for the novel's slick narrative.

On a morning commuter train a man dies, and 'One Moment, One Morning' then dwells on the lives of three people impacted.

One moment one morning book