Twelve Hours in Manhattan

Bianca is facing absolute despair. She tried her best to make a very good pitch which was rejected in the most devastating manner. She is in massive debt and has been sitting in the bar unable to move in any one direction. She knows she should go to her hotel room and then, in the clear light of morning try and work out what to do.

A tall, dark handsome a man walks up and stands next to her and they begin to chat. He asks her to sit with him at his table and share his wine. So begins a night of magic, a night when two people, who both want so desperately to be able to spend some time, doing something that is as far away from their everyday life as possible, come together to do just that: enjoy a magical moment in time, for just one short night only.

Eric is a famous Korean K-Drama star, Park Hyun Min; she is a thirty something woman facing destitution if she can’t get some sort of job soon. He wants anonymity, she simply wants out of her tragedy that is a life.

Together they spend the night discovering the very essence that is Manhattan; eating ice-cream, dodging fans, sitting on the steps of beautiful Church, talking about all the important things in life before finally paying a visit to the very top of the Empire State Building.

Bianca can’t help falling more than a little in love with this amazingly gentle man, he also is beginning to fall deeply in love with Bianca. She was already in love with him, via his action movies, but as the early morning light begins to break over the City, Bianca has to make a decision, to stay or go. She chooses to go.

Tragedy is lying in wait which shatters her world. Over the next two years she has only one thing that keeps her going; her love of Eric, a man she met for one night only. Fate is waiting in the wings and as Bianca slowly begins to rebuild her life, she learns to accept that good things can and will and do sometimes happen.

Twelve Hours in Manhattan is delicately written, entwining the many aspect of love, family, loyalty and acceptance into what could be considered as a modern Cinderella story, that deals carefully with the very emotions that are often pushed to one side in the modern world. The strength of family and friends when life gets tough, the wonderful side story of Bianca’s mother and the distress this causes, is very real.

Not Sleepless in Seattle with Meg Ryan as Bianca tends to feel it is, in her surreal night of romance, but far earthier and once the story begins to unfold, very difficult to leave to one side, even though the conclusion is not difficult to figure out.

Twelve Hours in Manhattan is a great read for a weekend away or for relaxing into on your holiday.