#Blogtour Counting Down To You by Sarah J. Harris

 
It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour Counting Down to You by Sarah J. Harris, published by Lake Union Publishing 15th July 2025. Tour organised courtesy of #RandomThingsTour.

About the Author

Sarah J. Harris is an award-winning author and freelance education journalist who regularly writes for national newspapers. Meet Me on the Bridge, published by Lake Union, was an Amazon ebook bestseller in the UK and US.

Her debut novel, The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder, won the Breakthrough Author award from Books Are My Bag and was a Richard and Judy pick. She also published One Ordinary Day At A Time with HarperCollins.

The author writes YA thrillers as Sarah Wishart, including The Murder Hypothesis and Four Good Liars, which was shortlisted for the North East Book Awards.

Sarah grew up in the West Midlands, and studied English at Nottingham University before gaining a postgraduate diploma in journalism at Cardiff University.

She is a black belt in karate and a green belt in kickboxing. She lives in London with her husband and two sons. Follow @sarahsky23 on X

About the book

From the bestselling author of Meet Me on the Bridge comes a moving, feel-good novel that shows it’s never too late to look for happiness, perfect for fans of Holly Miller, Cesca Major and Rosie Walsh.

Sophie can see how long people have left to live. Her first love Adam is back. And he has just 24 days to go.

Ever since the accident that changed Sophie’s life, she sees numbers everywhere. From the leaves on a tree to the volume of a puddle, everything has its number. And every person she meets? Their number is counting down the number of days they have left.

Despite being lonely, Sophie has decided she’s not dating anyone with a number smaller than 20,000 days: 55 years together should be plenty. Which is fine, until Adam—her first love and most definitely the one that got away—suddenly reappears. And his number? Just 24 days…

Sophie has tried and failed to save lots of people in the past; she thought she couldn’t alter fate, no matter how hard she tried. But the way Adam looks at her makes her feel alive again for the first time in years. She questions everything, and a spark is lit. Could true love be powerful enough to rewrite the future? Maybe some rules are meant to be broken, and perhaps Adam is the one who will show her that not every ending is set in stone…

Review

Sarah spends a lot of her time living in a constant state of what happens next if I do or don't intervene. Her ability to see lifespans has a lot of negative consequences for her, despite her obsession with changing the inevitable. So what happens when love invites itself back inside her life and her obsession is torn between living in the here and now or the reality of death at her door everywhere she looks?

I really enjoyed the concept, it has a mathematical theory meets magical realism in number-space synaesthesia kind of way. I also welcomed the fact the author didn't feel it necessary to change the interesting concept to suit the needs of a romance driven read. Instead the concept evolves with the story, and in a way that allows for magical realism to walk hand-in-hand with reality.

It also plays a little bit with a butterflyesque effect Sophie's gift or affliction brings with it. Does trying to change the inevitable with sheer force or the elimination of possible threats change the outcome, slow the outcome, speed it up or make the event more severe? If that is the case, then why try to change the outcome at all. Does it throw up a question of morality if Sophie just leaves people to their end, regardless of what that end may look like?

It was an intriguing combination of contemporary romance read with a side dish of maths or rather a portion of individual doomsday counters. It does make you wonder whether the knowledge of expected time available would change the way people interact with others and indeed with themselves, it certainly does for Sarah.

Buy Counting Down To You at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Buy at Amazon com.  Buy via Bookshop org.