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The Christmas Book Club by Sarah Morgan

Mar11

Deliciously Wonderful

The Christmas Book Club by Sarah Morgan is an absolutely charming, contemporary feel-good novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. Although there is the word ‘Christmas’ in the title, this is a book that can be enjoyed all year round. The action is set in early December but the focus of the book is on friends and family.

We drop in on three lifelong friends who are taking a vacation in a quaint inn in Vermont for a week discussing books. We hear of the background of the three – the workaholic, the broken-hearted and the soon-to-be empty nester. All three are facing challenges but are united by their love and support.

We also meet the innkeeper who is struggling with sudden loss and is a young widow with a five year old daughter. “Grief never leaves you.” Grief paralyses, there is no end as she tries to fulfill her husband’s dreams for the inn. “She was the caretaker of his dreams.” But his dreams and his way are not the only way. The young widow needs to find her way.

Our upbringings shape us. A character has never known her father. This has made her ultra independent and afraid to show her emotions. No one has penetrated her hard outer shell until… an encounter with a delightful five year old.

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Open Minded by Chloe Seager

Feb15

When The Mouse Roars

Open Minded by Chloe Seager is a contemporary book exploring relationships. It was an absorbing read that I read mostly in one sitting – pausing only to sleep!

We see that there are many types of relationships – parents, siblings, partners, friends. One size does not fit all. We follow the two main characters and their interactions with others, their work and each other. They meet in unusual circumstances but a friendship develops.

At work, we see the bully in the workplace. Others tiptoe around the bully until one awards evening when – the mouse roars! And the reader applauds.

It is important to be true to oneself. Too often we try to fit into the mold that others, or the world, have created for us. Sooner or later, it will all come crashing down. To your own self be true.

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Hidden Fires by Sairish Hussain

Jan18

Tragic & Heartbreaking

Hidden Fires by Sairish Hussain is a powerful and absolutely heart-breaking novel that will mess with your emotions. It will make you angry as you witness the terrible consequences of man’s inhumanity to man, whilst simultaneously making you weep.

The novel is mainly set in Bradford in 2017, just at the time of the Grenfell Tower fire. The main characters are an eighty year old grandfather and his sixteen year old granddaughter. They are similar but different as both try to deal with their problems alone, whilst pretending all is well. “We’ve drifted away into our own corners of ourselves.” For the granddaughter, it is the bullies at school. For the grandfather it is guilt and loss that has followed him down seventy years after the dreadful events of partition in 1947 India and Pakistan.

The grandfather is not the only male, his age hiding guilty secrets connected with partition. Events haunted a generation. The reader is horrified and saddened for what theses young boys saw in 1947 – events, so shocking, they never left them. “We had to run for our lives from people who looked just like us, spoke like us, lived beside us.”

As her mother is ill and her father is a workaholic, the granddaughter is used to being alone. Her father is a social worker who helps other people’s kids but misses the trauma in his own daughter. “He’s too busy.”

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After The Snow by Susannah Constantine

Nov23

A Fabulous Debut

After The Snow by Susannah Constantine is a marvellous debut historical novel that totally enthralled me.

The novel is set in 1969. It is a bygone era (although part of my childhood!) and set in Scotland with the snow on the ground.

We follow two eleven year old girls who are friends. One is the daughter of an earl and the other lives in the gatehouse. We see the action through their eyes. There is an innocence to the proceedings. The reader can clearly see the affair between two characters but the girls are oblivious.

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