One night of the year is “my night.”  While the rest of the family is off doing their thing, I remain at home eating Chinese food, cleaning the house, and writing ridiculous parodies in an effort to bide my time for midnight.

Time drags slower than it does when you’re five and it’s bedtime on Christmas Eve.  Trust me.

This year, however, I had a distraction.  Just after I finished this year’s parody, I took my nap and then slipped off to Denny’s for chicken nachos and… A date with an intriguing man.

No, my husband didn’t join me.  Kevin also wouldn’t care that I held a not-so-clandestine tryst with this man—or with the woman who loves him.

Yep, I lost myself so deeply into the pages of the book that I almost didn’t get the first words written on my NaNoWriMo project before 12:01 struck!

Gulp.

I always write 1667 words immediately after midnight.  Now, it might take me until 1:30 or 2:00, but I do it because I like to get that jump.  I actually prefer to finish with 3K words, but I can do the other 1333 words after I wake up.

Yeah… not last night.  Other things waited for me.  People.  Places.  Other times.

Note: links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you. I also requested a review copy of this book and subsequently chose to review it.

Just How Did My Hours Get Spent Last Night?

I got jilted last night—what a relief. Not only that, I survived a bomb raid and a mugging. I made new friends—good ones, true ones. Too often friends are what we call the people we enjoy spending time with now and then.

I made the kind of friends who will never leave my heart even if I never see them again.

Last night, I also learned what true forgiveness looks like. I saw, through the lives of people I want to know oh so much better, what love really is. Oh, yeah. Last night, I fell in love.

But the best part of all?  Last night Roseanna M. White held me hostage for hours, teaching me, misleading me, torturing me. It was the best October 31st I’ve had in twelve years and it stayed the best well into November 1.

And now I sit here and try to tell you why An Hour Unspent will be some of the best hours you’ll spend.  The problem is that I can’t do it.  There aren’t words to adequately describe what the book better shows.

I tell students all the time. “When you write, show the action on the big screen—let your readers live it with your characters.  Don’t just inform them that it happened.”

That’s what this review feels like—a cheap imitation of the real thing.  So here’s my take on An Hour Unspent.

Read it.  For the beautiful imagery that doesn’t weigh you down?  Read it.  For the characters that will steal your heart, break your heart, and those that mend your heart.  Read it.  For history woven in so deftly that you feel as if you knew things you didn’t actually know before?  Yeah.  Read it. For spiritual lessons that pierce your heart and convict almost before you know it happened?  Read it.

But if for no other reason, read it as a gift to yourself.  Because this book just jumped to the top of my 2018 top ten favorites.