Have you ever tried to pass the time by imagining the lives of the strangers standing next to you? Ilona Bannister’s FIVE introduces readers to five seemingly random people waiting for a train. But these are not just any five people. From the beginning, we know that one of them is going to die soon. The next train to London will arrive in five minutes, killing one of them. But before this happens, you will learn their stories. Readers might fall in love with the beautiful young man who is on the verge of gambling his life away. They may pity the cantankerous old woman who has fallen to the ground yet is refusing help. Perhaps readers will look away from the child throwing a tantrum. Or judge his mother, who surely must be to blame. And some will be curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman orbiting them all.

As the Twin Towers collapse, Gigi Stanislawski flees her office building and escapes lower Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry. She finds someone she recognizes --- Harry Harrison, a regular at her favorite coffee shop --- and brings him to her parents' house as she waits for the phone call that will never come: the call from Frankie, her younger brother. Ten years later, Gigi, now a single mother, meets Harry (again by chance), and they fall deeply in love. But their move to London and their new baby leave her feeling isolated, raw and alone with her grief. As Gigi comes face-to-face with the anguish of her brother's death and her rage at the unspoken pain of motherhood, she must somehow find the light amid all the darkness.