Tessa Bickers's charming second novel, The Night Bus, explores the delights of serendipitous connection and the power of learning to trust and stand up for oneself.
Each morning for several months, radio journalist Daisy Douglas has spotted the same man aboard her 4 a.m. London bus, avidly rereading a worn copy of Virginia Woolf's Orlando. Who is he, and why that book? When the bus breaks down one day, Daisy meets Tom, a photographer who is convinced the key to undoing his recent breakup lies in Orlando's pages. Daisy, sympathetic and intrigued, helps Tom hatch a plan to win back his ex. Over subsequent bus rides and much plotting, the two become close enough for Tom to learn that Daisy is having second thoughts about her upcoming wedding.
Bickers (The Book Swap) delicately explores the nuances of people pleasing as Daisy struggles to decide whether her wedding jitters are cold feet or a deeper, more serious instinct. Her fiancé, Zack, long ago convinced Daisy he knows what's best for them both. But as Daisy's friendship with Tom grows, she begins to question Zack's narrow, prescribed path for her life, and to wonder about pursuing other possibilities, which may include a bold career move or a certain handsome photographer.
Love of all kinds is a vital force in Bickers's cheer-worthy narrative as Daisy discovers that the person with the most power to change her life is sitting in her bus seat and not in the one across the aisle. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams