Anthologies are hard to rate , because it's not one story but many small ones, some you like , some you don't but with Five Tuesdays in winter , every story was beautiful .
This was my first lily king book but she is no stranger and i have heard such good things about her and this set of stories just proved them all right <3

Lily King is one of my favorite writers and this treasure of short stories is no exception. She is a word-smith genius, and her sharp eye for the minutiae of every-day life makes every story seem like something we might perhaps have actually experienced ourselves, or been told about by a friend during a boozy dinner party.

I struggle to articulate my feelings on short story collections as a whole but I thoroughly enjoyed the majority of these. I especially loved the first three and the fantastical feel on the final one.

This is a solid set of short stories, which is high praise from someone that usually skips collected works. I did feel that some were more vignette in style, sketches of stories maybe and occasionally this made me dissatisfied considering how well written others were. It can hardly be too critical though, accusing an author of writing so well that I simply wanted more.

Lily King’s Five Tuesdays in Winter is her first collection of short stories, some with a darker edge than I remember from Writers & Lovers and Fathers of the Rain, both of which I enjoyed very much.

I’ll begin with my favourite, the gently humorous titular story which sees a socially awkward bookseller harbouring a quiet passion for a member of staff, cheered on by his beloved, much more emotionally intelligent twelve-year-old. In When in the Dordogne a man looks back to the summer he was fourteen, left in the care of two students and the confidence they gave him to start his life, understanding only later what each meant to the other. Of the darker stories, Timeline sees Lucy fleeing a disastrous affair and finding herself in the midst of another set of fraught relationships wondering if she'll manage to get it all down on paper. Man at the Door is about a struggling writer interrupted by a man banging on the door who won't take no for an answer, brandishing a copy of her work in progress. I thought this one might backfire but it turned into a favourite with its dark humour and satisfying smothering of self-doubt.

Family break-ups, adolescence, addiction and its consequences, and writing are all explored in these ten stories but King’s dominant theme is love, in one form or another. She delivers characteristically astute observations on relationships, particularly between adults and adolescents. Many of her characters wrestle with parenthood problems exacerbated by break-ups. A couple of the shorter pieces are a little unsatisfying but it’s an enjoyable collection, written with a pleasing insight and perception.

Having loved Lily King’s Writers & Lovers I was looking forward to reading more of her work and I can happily say (or write) that her first-ever collection of short stories did not disappoint. More often than not I find short story collections to be a mixed bag (with some good ones, some meh ones, and even a bad egg or two). But, I found myself drawn to all of the stories in Five Tuesdays in Winter. While the stories focus on characters who don’t always have much in common (be it their age, the time when and/or place where they are living, their fears or desires) their narratives are characterised by a bittersweet tone that will elicit feelings of nostalgia in the reader (regardless of whether they have experienced what the characters are experiencing). Despite the title of this collection many of these stories are set during the summer and easily transport us right there alongside the characters so that we too are experiencing the heat, elation, and almost-surreality of their summer holidays (that feeling of being free from the usual routines etc). King captures with unsparing clarity the thoughts and feelings of her characters, and conveys their wide range of emotions, honing in on the longing, unease, giddiness, and sadness they experience over the course of their stories. Some are in love with someone who may or may not reciprocate their feelings, others are in a phase of transition, for example, from childhood to adulthood, or mired in the confusion of adolescence.

In the first story, ‘Creature’, Cara, a fourteen-year-girl, is employed by a well-off family as a babysitter for the summer holidays. During the time she spends at this family’s house she becomes infatuated with Hugh, her employer's son, who is much older than her. Our narrator is an aspiring author who likes to envision herself as a Jane Eyre sort of figure but, one thing is to daydream about Hugh, another is realising that Hugh has no compunction about making a move on her (when she’s very much underage).
In ‘Five Tuesdays in Winter’ a single-father and bookseller falls for his employer who is also tutoring his daughter in Spanish. Mitchell is however unable to express his feelings and spends much of his time longing to confess his love to her. In ‘When in the Dordogne’ the son of two professors bonds with the two college students who have been hired to housesit his home and keep an eye on him. In ‘North Sea’ a mother and daughter are on vacation together but their strained relationship results in a less than idyllic time. While the following stories also present us with different perspectives and scenarios they explore similar themes (hope, connection, love). I liked how King manages to be both a gentle and an unflinching storyteller, that is able to make you happy one moment and sad the next. I also appreciated that the stories didn’t have neat endings or ‘valuable’ life lessons but often read like a slice-of-life that is providing us with a glimpse into a specific period of her characters’ lives. King captures how confusing feelings can be sometimes, so that we have characters both longing for something or someone while at the same time feeling uneasy at the possibility of attaining what, or who, they’d thought they desired.
My favourites were ‘Creature’, ‘When in the Dordogne’, ‘Timeline’, and ‘Hotel Seattle’.
King’s understated prose is a marvel to read and I had a wonderful time with this collection. If you were a fan of Writers & Lovers you should definitely pick this one up. Moving and wistful Five Tuesdays in Winter is a scintillating collection!

ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Lily King has to be one of the best writers working today. Her novels, particularly Writers and Lovers and Euphoria are exquisite portraits of women and their relationships to others and to the worlds they inhabit. I approached Five Tuesdays in Winter with some trepidation. Could she straddle the different disciplines of the short story and the novel. YES she can. These are utterly brilliant, memorable and moving. In a few pages she creates rounded characters and achingly poignant scenarios. I will gift this book to many people. Thank you NetGalley and Lily King for such pleasure.

This is the first of Lily King’s books I have read although having many on my TBR and so had no expectations going into it, although I’m sure if I had, they would all have been met. Each story was entirely different and entirely addicting at the same time. There was no point at which I was bored with a one or wanted to move onto the next. The way she is able to portray emotions from grief and loss, to love and heartbreak is beautiful. I have no doubt I will go on to read and enjoy many of her other books, and soon.

Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King is a very strong collection of keenly observed short stories with deftly handled characterization and compelling writing.