4 stars out of 5.
Thanks to Netgalley UK and Harper Collins for the ARC.
Set in the idyllic Lakes, this book is about a school shooting and the wider effects on the community coming to terms with the horrific incident, (think Dunblane), and also having to deal with conspiracy theories.
There is much grief but also a lot of love.
I was gripped from the start.
The book is narrated from different characters perspectives and at different times, at first I found this a bit confusing, but it falls into place.
If you can see past the storyline - a school shooting - which wouldn't be my go-to I must admit, it really is a great read.
DAY ONE publishes on 28 March 2024.

Wow with its relentless pace and spine-tingling atmosphere, this story left me with a sense of unease that stayed with me long after I closed the book. A seriously good thriller

A fabulously written gripping story that was a pleasure to read. Another amazing book by Abigail Dean, Girl A is an favourite of mine, but now I have a new one. I would absolutely recommend this book, it was brilliant

In the beautiful Lake District community of Stonesmere an atrocity is committed. The Primary School is attacked by an armed man and the inhabitants lives will change forever. Inevitably, the eyes of the media hones in on the people from this tiny place but not all of the observers believe the evidence in front of them. A group of people calling themselves ‘truthers’ think that the shooting was a hoax, the victims didn’t exist and the survivors are actors. Further anguish ensues.

This is a great book - a real page-turner and Abigail Dean cranks up the tension as the plot unfolds over an eight-year period. The narrative perspectives include Marty Ward (the daughter of one of the victims) and Trent Casey (a young truther). The novel urges the reader to ask lots of questions: who is telling the truth? What does truth even mean anyway? How healthy is the internet in an age where everyone can create their own versions of events?

This is a must read for fans of ‘Girl A’ and ‘Three Hours’ by Rosamund Lipton. Indeed, fans of plot and character driven trillers will find a great deal of enjoyment in this book.

Day One walks us through the lives of a town following a horrific massacre. With a handful of main characters we jump from person to person understanding where they were on that day, and the says, weeks nad months following it. We learn they have secrets, some bigger and more embarassing than others but above all this story is a good reminder of the damage that can be caused so easily by those who choose to push for the truth.

I enjoyed the story but I struggled a little with the continual changes of narrator. I would ahve liked to ahve spent a little more time with each.

Mia

This is one of the most complicated books I have ever read it took me nearly 2 weeks to read cos.i just didnt get the story and were it went ....no twists just something I couldn't and still dont understand...sorry readers!!!!

When a gunman massacres a group of children and their teacher at a small primary school, the life of one of the survivors will never be the same again.



Day One by Abigail Dean is a harrowing tale, set in a small town in the Lake District. The children of Stonesmere Primary School are performing when a gunman kills ten of them and their teacher. The vast majority of the story is told through the eyes of two young adults, Marty and Trent.

Marty is the daughter of the teacher who was killed. Her sporting prowess has made her a minor celebrity in the small community, however, her talent is beginning to fade. Poor exam results mean that she is unable to go to university and has ended up working at the primary school as a part-time sports coach. On the day of the shooting, she runs from the school, a survivor, having witnessed events. However, this isn't true and she makes no effort to correct people.

Trent has a grudge against the town. He lived there as a young boy for a while and never really fit in. When he hears about the shooting, and the identity of the shooter, he starts a website trying to convince the world that the whole event was fake.

While the novel brings to mind the events of Dunblane, almost thirty years ago, it's more recent school shootings in America that bring in the conspiracy theory story arc. In the UK we only see these events from afar, but Day One gives you an idea of the fervour and conviction of the individuals who peddle misinformation and it is frightening. You are filled with dismay at the thought of what families have to go through as they are hounded and harassed by "truthers", all while grieving.

As the story progresses from the day of the massacre, eight years ago, through to the current day you get a glimpse of the emotions the people involved have to deal with. Interspersed with these are snippets from others caught up in the tragedy. Alongside this, the true story of exactly what Marty was doing on the fateful day is slowly revealed.

Neither Marty nor Trent are likeable, but by the end, you do have some sympathy for them. It's the families that your compassion is saved for, as you read of the gut-wrenching moments they wait for news about their child. The harrowing moments when they learn that their child isn't going to run into their arms. The numbness of the aftermath. This is a story that is going to stay with me for quite a while.

If you've read "Girl A" then you are going to want to read "Day One" by Abigail Dean. She covers another subject that rocks a community: a school shooting. Told from multiple perspectives, what was a cut and dried school shooting very quickly gets blurred as the conspiracy theorists set up camp. What you get is a story where you don't really know who is telling the truth, and what the truth actually is.

Day One opens with the shock of a school shooting in the Lake District and unfolds through the eyes of a variety of characters, primarily Marty, the daughter of the teacher involved, and Trent, a loner who becomes obsessed with an internet conspiracy that the shooting never happened.

I loved this book despite it's very upsetting subject matter. The setting is almost a character in itself, the small town in a beautiful but claustrophobic place, full of people who have long standing and complicated relationships. The event and its aftermath feel very real, with clear echoes of Dunblane and Sandy Hook, but it never feels exploitative and the periodic retelling of the shooting from the viewpoint of those involved is sympathetic and genuinely upsetting. The storyline of the internet conspiracy is very well done and feels all too close to what we see online today, led by an absolute charlatan who seems far too familiar. Both the main characters have very believable back stories and actions and both manage to be flawed and sympathetic. A real twisty story with so much more depth than we usually see - I'm already looking forward to Abigail Dean's next book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the copy in return for an honest review.

#Day One #NetGalley

This was a superb read however it is slow in places and not easy to follow all the characters with the varying time lines. I still thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to my group to read along with the warning of it being slow in places and that it needed concentration to follow the time lines. Martha (Marty) was a very complicated person and it was lovely to follow through what she was doing and saying and the final outcome. The characters were very well described and i could relate to them and the scenery.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, I was expecting a real page turner of a thriller. The premise was good, but it felt like there were too many chapters where not much happened. I was unsure if we were meant to be sympathetic to Marty or not? I think the reveal came a bit too late, I had almost given up. The ending was good, it just took to long to get there.

A well paced thriller with an interesting plot.
A brilliant follow up from Abigail Dean - already looking forward to her next.
4 stars.

"These days, in Stonesmere, there was always somebody a little sadder than you"

In picture postcard Stonesmere, Lake District its tradition for the older children leaving primary education to welcome those about to start their first year with a Day One presentation. For years much loved Teacher Ava Ward has guided her nervous pupils through their moment on stage and calmed their last minute nerves. But this year their moment in the spotlight turns to tragedy as a lone gunman enters the hall.

A heartbreaking read that starts with a bang but quickly becomes a multi-faceted, compelling look at the community, the people and their lives, the events that led up to that fateful day and the aftermath, when fingers were being pointed, questions were being asked and the media and conspiracy theorists besieged the local population.

Moving backward and forward in time and told from different perspectives I didn't find this the easiest book to get into and several chapters in totally confused I went back to the beginning and started again paying careful attention to the chapter headings this time which certainly helped.

I loved this book, the scene setting, the characterisation and the way the author slowly brought it all together. I wanted to knock a star off for my initial confusion but I can't, this novel moved me to tears and broke my heart. It was gut wrenching, bleak and extraordinarily powerful - my standout book of the year so far.

My thanks to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for the advance review copy, I was under no obligation and all opinions expressed are my own.

I love the premise of this book, and the author has clearly done a lot of research on mass shooters and the aftermath of those events. There were elements of it that really worked (Day One for example, the setting, the idea of it being the aftermath & more of a whydunnit) but I just didn’t find it compelling and struggled to finish. There just wasn’t a clear hook for me - I wasn’t sure why I was reading it. The writing was excellent however.

I love a bit of controversy, so was drawn to Abigail Dean's Day One due to its very much taboo subject matter. The tale of a school shooting in northern England it takes us through multiple characters and timelines, but focusses on Marty - the grown up daughter of a school teacher caught up in the tragedy and Trent - a conspiracist with links back to the town and alleged shooter.

The fast paced jumping between players and times can be a bit jarring at first, as is the odd use of first person for some of Marty's (but not all) and third person for everyone else even though the story does not feel narrated. But the story is well crafted, heart felt and genuinely intriguing as we find out more about the fateful night with each chapter that passes.

As a fan of character and relationship movies I can imagine this would be exactly the kind of film that I would enjoy and I always see that as a good barometer of my enjoyment. If I can see the film running in my head and am still there as the credits roll, then I have spent my time well.

I will most certainly be checking out Abigail Dean's other novels soon.

Amazing book. Very well written. I was hooked and stayed up late so I could finish it. Really reccomend.

Day One is about a mass shooting at a primary school and the mess of its aftermath: secrets, conspiracy theories and guilt.
Abigail Dean writes as brilliantly as she did in Girl A - flawed but realistic characters and a tense and tragic plot. However, this novel didn't quite get into my soul like Girl A did. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I thought she didn't quite capture the grief of the families; and the final 'twist' also fell a little flat. This said, it was still a great read which I expect will do well.

Thanks to NetGalley, Abigail Dean and the publishers for an electronic copy in exchange for an honest review.

Just as she did in Girl A, Dean's chief focus is on the psychology and motivation of those involved rather than the horror of the event itself, drawing a nuanced, emotionally sensitive portrait of the residents of the Yorkshire village where the shooting took place. It's a privilege extended to Trent, whose unofficial reporting of the crime turns up the lie that encourages the 'truthers' to insist the event never happened. The rest of that faction, however, are represented as caricatures of right-wing populists and conspiracy theorists, which is a bit of a shame. A gripping read nonetheless.

It's taken a while for me to recover from reading this book. Having read Girl A, I knew I would also want to read this , so I didn't read the synopsis first. This probably increased the impact as the plot unfolded.
I can still remember where I was,sitting in a car pregnant, and with my two children strapped in as reports of the Dunblane shooting. There are obvious echoes in this book.
It makes for grim reading and couldn't be described as enjoyable but it was compelling. There was a real sense of place and I felt that I had walked into the setting.
Thanks to Netgalley.

Switching between various timepoints from before to Day one and beyond and told from multiple viewpoints this is a heart-wrenching tale of loss mired by the insistence of a group of deniers that the tragedy every took place and that the information reported in the news is all falsified.
Stuffed full of well rounded characters this is a real page turner.