Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Favourite Christmas Books







The above four titles have been favourites in our family since the children were tiny. They are still enjoyed every year to pick up and browse.

Wishing all my readers and followers Seasonal Greetings and hope for a Peaceful and Prosperous 2017.  I will be taking a blogging break now until after Twelfth Night.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Spilt Milk by Amanda Hodgkinson

                                                             
 
Paperback: 291 pages                                                                                                 
Genre:Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin 2014
Source: Advance Reading Copy
First Sentence: They were a mend-and-make do kind of familyand you had to love them for it.
Review Quote: Hogkinson's second novel is simply but elegantly written, its subtle charms emerging as her gentle, bittersweet story shows history repeating itself over the generations (Sunday Times)
Favourite Quote: "The child was born in the dry, corn-cracked summer when the air was thick with heat. A boy with dark hair and a docile way about him. He barely cried and lay in her arms peacefully, as if he had always been held by her. Birdie was sure the midwife must have known this was not her first child but nothing was said and she was grateful to the woman for her tactful silence."
My Opinion: I throughly enjoyed this novel, the first I have read by this author but hopefully it will not be the last, as I will look out for her debut and any future published works.  As the story unfolds the secrets that the sisters share, slowly unravel in a moving tale of a family that faces adversity more than once. Recommended to those that enjoy a family saga.



Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

The eagerly anticipated new historical novel from the author of 22 Britannia Road: a novel about sisterhood, motherhood, and secrets that cannot be laid to rest.

1913. Unmarried sisters Nellie and Vivian Marsh live an impoverished existence in a tiny cottage on the banks of the Little River in Suffolk. Their life is quiet and predictable, until a sudden flood throws up a strange fish on their doorstep and a travelling man who will change them forever.


1939. Eighteen year old Birdie Farr is working as a barmaid in the family pub in London. When she realises she is pregnant she turns to her mother Nellie, who asks her sister to arrange an adoption for Birdie's newborn daughter. But as the years pass Birdie discovers she cannot escape the Marsh sisters' shadowy past - and her own troubling obsession with finding her lost daughter will have deep consequences for all of them.


Author Profile

Born on October 25th but no record of the year, Amanda Hodgkinson is an award-winning British novelist and journalist who grew up in a small Essex fishing village before moving to Suffolk, and attending the University of East Anglia.  Her debut novel 22 Britannia Road was an international bestseller, an Amazon.com book of the year 2011, a Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee and was published in over sixteen languages. Spilt Milk is her critically acclaimed second novel published in 2014. (Spilt Milk is a refracted version of real life, that impossible mess we inherit and muddle through, yet transmuted here into something shining and meaningful, told in beautiful prose. THE FINANCIAL TIMES.)

Amanda loves to travel, cook, garden and swim (but not all at the same time). She currently lives in SW France in an old stone farmhouse high on a hill, with her husband and two daughters.


Photographs and biographical information courtesy of the following sites.

Goodreads Author Profile    Facebook Profile   Amanda Hodgkinson on Twitter 

 Amazon Author Profile Page

Friday, December 2, 2016

The Beekeeper's Daughter by Santa Montefiore



Hardback: 383 pages                                                                                               
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2014
Source: Tywyn Library
First Sentence: Of all the weathered grey-shingled buildings on Tekanasset Island, Crab Covegolf club is one of the prettiest.
Favourite Quote: We're here to learn, Gracey. To grow in love. That's all there is to it. It's not complicated. And the way to grow is through selflessness, forgiveness and compassion: love. That's all there is. Putting oneself second, not first. Looking out for one another, like the bees.'
Review Quote: ‘One of our personal favourites and bestselling authors, sweeping stories of love and families spanning continents and decades’ (The Times)
My Opinion: I have read and reviewed a number of Santa Montefiore's novels and one thing that can be guaranteed if you pick up one of her novels, is a relaxing read about families and love set in a beautiful environment. She writes in a very atmospheric style and at first I was slightly disappointed with this one, although once I got into the novel this disappeared. Having only very recently read another of her novels, it seemed to have so many similarities and I had concerns about the formulaic style of the writing. There is no doubt that there is a pattern to her novels but lets face it, there is a pattern to romance and this is how she is entertaining us. Therefore, I recommend this as another delightful read set in the English countryside and the USA.

Recommended to: Fans of Rosamunde Pilcher, especially as she is often referred to as the author who took over her place in writing contemporary fiction. By coincidence Rosamunde Pilcher retired from writing in 2000 not long before Santa Montefiore's first novel was published, she has published many titles since then, so if you have not yet discovered her writing and are a fan of contemporary romantic fiction, do give her novels a try.

My Previous Reviews:

The Swallow and The Hummingbird    The French Gardener    The Summer House

Secrets of the Lighthouse         The House by the Sea

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

England, 1932: Grace Hamblin is growing up in a rural idyll. The beekeeper's daughter, she knows her place and her future - that is until her father dies and leaves her alone. Alone, that is, except for one man who she just can't shake from her thoughts…
Massachusetts, 1973: Grace's daughter Trixie Valentine is in love with an unsuitable boy. He's wild and romantic, and in a band that might be going somewhere. But when tragedy strikes and he has to go home to England, he promises to come back to Trixie one day, if only she will wait for him.
Both mother and daughter are searching for love and happiness, unaware of the secrets that bind them. To find what they are longing for they must confront the secrets of the past, and unravel the lies told long ago…


Author Profile




Born in England in February 1970 Santa Montefiore grew up on a farm in Hampshire and was educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University and spent much of the 90s in Buenos Aires, where her mother grew up. She converted to Judaism in 1998 and married historian Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha in London.

The following Biography, in her own words is Courtesy of  Santa Montefiore Official Website

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a writer. I dabbled in books throughout my youth, from children’s stories to rather naïve love stories as I got older. From the age of 12 I went to Sherborne School for Girls, which was a boarding school. There I excelled in English, which was lucky because I certainly didn’t excel at much else except for sport and music! I wrote stories for my friends, imagining romances between them and the spotty youths they fancied at Sherborne Boys’ School. I transformed them into Rhett Butlers and set them in humid, mosquito infested jungles, which I considered extremely romantic, having never been in one. This seemed to satisfy them and I was in great demand to write more. Fancying myself a bit of a novelist, especially after a writer friend of my mother’s read one and suggested I send it to a publisher, I attempted a novel. With little experience of love and life it wasn’t a surprise when it was rejected. The trouble was I hadn’t yet found a good story. That came later, when I went to live in Argentina.

I was 19. My Anglo Argentine mother arranged for me to work on an estancia on the Argentine Pampa for a year, teaching English to three young children. This turned out to be one of the best things my parents ever did for me for I fell in love. Not with a polo playing Argentine, although I did have an innocent flirtation, but with the country. I lost my heart to those flat, humid plains and still, after 5 books, I have not managed to retrieve it. You see, Argentina is intoxicating. The countryside is rich with the scents of eucalyptus and gardenia, the sound of horses snorting in the fields or thundering up the polo pitch, birdsong and crickets resounding across the park. The houses, colonial in style, are painted white and yellow with dark green shutters to keep out the stifling summer heat, and surrounded by brightly coloured flowers and red tiled terraces upon which one can sit and stare out for miles over that vast plain. It is difficult to see where the sky begins and the earth ends, the horizon is simply mist. One feels very small. I spent a lot of time on a pony, riding to the neighbouring estancia for tea with friends, cutting across the plain, through the long grasses alive with prairie hares. Little by little I began to feel that I was a part of the place.

Buenos Aires is a city heavy with the sense of nostalgia. When the immigrants arrived from all over Europe, lured by the promise of rich pickings and new lives at the end of the 19th century, they recreated in the architecture echoes of their own homelands to stave off the inevitable homesickness. Thus, the Colón theatre is reminiscent of the Scala in Milan, the plazas of Madrid, the tall roofed buildings of Paris, the palm tree lined avenues of the South of France. Cafés spill out onto pavements where the waiters are all over sixty and one can sit in the shade and listen to the melancholy notes of the tango wafting on the breeze, thick with the scent of jasmine and diesel.

I left Argentina after a year, having belonged. The following year I returned during my university holiday to find, to my dismay, that I no longer fitted in. The young people I had hung out with had either gone to the US to study or had boyfriends or girlfriends and didn’t go down to the farm so much anymore, preferring to be in the city. I didn’t have a job, I was a tourist. I had nothing to get me up in the morning and the friends I had made in shops and cafés in the streets where I lived had moved on. I felt a sharp sense of alienation as if I was watching it all through a pane of glass where the year before I had been on the other side. It was a difficult time and I cried all the way home on the plane. However, I didn’t realise it then but I had my story.

We have all had moments that we would give anything to live again. However much we try, time cannot be reversed. It changes us and those we were once close to. My first novel, published in 2001, 12 years after my first trip to Argentina, was a wander down memory lane for me and hence very cathartic. I was able to channel all my feelings of nostalgia, regret and longing into a novel that seems to have struck a chord with many people. I get wonderful letters. I am grateful for every single one and thrilled that through that book I have managed to give people something special.

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:




Friday, November 18, 2016

Three Little Birds by Carol E. Wyer

                                           



Ebook: 272 pages in paperback version.                                                                                             
Genre: Humorous Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Safkhet Select (15 Aug. 2014)
Source: Via the author in return for an honest and unbiased review.
First Sentences: Prologue: Charlie was acutely aware of an urgent drumming in her ears. The noise threatened to deafen her. She couldn't move.
My Opinion: Touching yet still hilarious and highly entertaining in her light hearted and infectious style of humour.
It is just over five years since I read and reviewed Carol Wyer's début novel Mini Skirts and Laughter Lines and I have followed her career and rise to fame as a humorous novelist ever since. My thoughts at that time were that here was a novelist who knows how to make you laugh and take you away from the cares of the world for a few hours. She has gone on to prove this in a big way over the last few years. Unfortunately her rise to fame coincided with what turned out to be a very bad period in my own life and suddenly I did not feel like reading her particular brand of humour. Life has moved on, now I am stronger and once again able to laugh at things that during the dark times I was unable to. I am now busy catching up on the titles I have missed in recent years, she has certainly been prolific. In 2017 she is releasing a thriller, a complete change of genre, which I have already pre-ordered from Amazon.


My Earlier Reviews:  Mini Skirts and Laughter Lines   Surfing in Stilettos   Just Add Spice


Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:


If your friend challenged you, would you dare? Charlie Blundell cannot get over the tragic death of her only daughter. She drifts between her job at the Art cafe and her hospital radio show, the only things which give her life purpose. Her best friend, the madcap Mercedes, cajoles Charlie into writing a 'carpe diem' list, but then swaps Charlie's list with her own. Now, each must complete the other's challenges, and the outcomes will astound both of them. The challenges begin as a series of relatively harmless, fun activities. Soon, though, the stakes increase when Charlie has to complete her challenges to save the hospital radio station. As the tasks become more demanding, a handsome stranger takes an interest in her, but he is not what he seems. One challenge causes a secret buried deep within her to surface, which may prove to be her undoing. Three Little Birds is a story of love, friendship and discovery, laced with hilarity and topped by a wickedly funny parrot called Bert.


Author Profile:



Somehow Carol has so far managed to keep her age a secret from the media and there is no autobiographical about her birth that I could find online!

Author Biography is in her own words and reproduced from her website

Well, what can I tell you about myself? I actually began my working life abroad, in Casablanca, Morocco, where I taught English and French. I raced around the streets on an ancient VéloSoleX  bike, avoiding donkeys and other clapped out bikes, to get to the jobs on time. I had one run in with a donkey at a set of traffic lights which caused me to fall off my bike – but that’s another story.

After a few years, I returned to the UK to teach and run the English as a Foreign Language department of a private school. (Imagine Hogwarts without the wizardry.)  Although I enjoyed wearing a gown and a mortar board and being called a mistress, I left the school to set up a language company and ventured out on my own.

I have written stories since I was in my early twenties. My first efforts were for children and sported silly titles like Humphrey and the Dustbin Cats, Hurrah for Hugo! and Noir and Blanc - Two Naughty Cats. They taught French language to younger children and were accompanied by a tape of French songs, mercifully not sung by me.

I began writing for adults in 2009 after my son left home. I converted his old bedroom into an office and began writing in earnest.

It was not an easy journey but I have been most fortunate and in 2015 I signed with publishing house Bookouture to publish four books over the new two years and more recently with Delancey Press who have taken on my three award-winning non-fiction books and three novels.

When I am not working on a novel or non-fiction books, I write articles for magazines and have a variety of health and travel features published in Woman’s Weekly, Yours and Woman's Own. I also blog for The Huffington Post.


My books aim to encourage as many people as possible to age disgracefully and enjoy life.  After all, life is short and 'he who laughs...lasts!'


Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:



Amazon Author Page    Carol E.Wyer - Official Website     Facebook Profile    


Twitter Account   Goodreads Author Profile

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward



Hardback: 354 pages                                                                                              
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Publisher: Faber and Faber 2015
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentences: Prologue - Blade clanked on flint. Again. Causing the man to recoil.
Review Quote: 'The title suggests that this debut novel ought to be yet another example of Nordic Noir and, although it is set in rural Derbyshire, it does have a Scandinavian sensibility exerting its grip through strength of characterisation.' (Jake Kerridge, Sunday Express magazine)
My Opinion: This is a book I would never have read had it not been a book club choice. However I am glad I did as this novel is a well written and intriguing story with family history secrets as the theme.
Although not my favourite genre, the excellent character profiles and the twists and turns throughout the novel as the investigation unfolds kept me interested. The truth prevails in the end.


Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

In 1978, a small town in Derbyshire, England is traumatised by the kidnapping of two young schoolgirls. One girl, Rachel, is later found unharmed but unable to remember anything except that her abductor was a woman.

Over thirty years later the mother of the still missing Sophie commits suicide. Superintendent Llewellyn, who was a young constable on the 1978 case, asks DI Francis Sadler and DC Connie Childs to look again at the kidnapping to see if modern police methods can discover something that the original team missed. However, Sadler is convinced that a more recent event triggered Yvonne Jenkins’s suicide.

Rachel, with the help of her formidable mother and grandmother, recovered from the kidnapping and has become a family genealogist. She remembers nothing of the abduction and is concerned that, after Yvonne Jenkins’s suicide, the national media will be pursuing her for a story once more. Days later, the discovery of one of her former teachers’ strangled body suggested a chain of events is being unleashed.


Rachel and the police must unpick the clues to discover what really happened all those years ago. But in doing so, they discover that the darkest secrets can be the ones closest to you.



Author Profile:



I have been unable to find much biographical information online about Sarah Ward. If you are interested in learning more about her all I can suggest is that you visit her Author's Official Website

Sarah Ward is the author of In Bitter Chill, which was published in 2015 to critical acclaim and her second novel A Deadly Thaw which was published just a couple of months ago. On her blog, Crimepieces she reviews current crime fiction published around the world. She has written reviews for Euro Crime and CrimeSquad. She is also  a judge for the Petrona Award for Scandinavian translated crime novels. She lives in Derbyshire.



Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Sarah Ward - Amazon Page     Author's Official Website      Goodreads Profile

Twitter - Sarah Ward      Sarah Ward Crime - Facebook

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The House by the Sea by Santa Montefiore

                                                 

Paperback: 480 pages                                                                                              
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2011
Source: Amazon Purchase.
First Sentence: Prologue Tuscany 1966 - The little girl stood outside the imposing black gates of Villa La Magdalena and peered up the drive.
Favourite Quote: We come down here to experience life and learn to be compassionate, loving human beings.
Review Quote: ‘One of our personal favourites and bestselling authors, sweeping stories of love and families spanning continents and decades’ (The Times)
My Opinion: I have read and reviewed a number of Santa Montefiore's novels  and one thing that can be guaranteed if you pick up one of her novels, is a relaxing read about families and love set in a beautiful environment. She writes in a very atmospheric style and this time I was whisked away from the cold November weather to Tuscany and Devon.

Please note this book has also been published with the title The Mermaid Garden

Recommended to : Fans of Rosamunde Pilcher, especially as she is often referred to as the author who took over her place in writing contemporary fiction. By coincidence Rosamunde Pilcher retired from writing in 2000 not long before Santa Montefiore's first novel was published, she has published many titles since then, so if you have not yet discovered her writing and are a fan of contemporary romantic fiction, do give her novels a try.

My Previous Reviews:

The Swallow and The Hummingbird    The French Gardener    The Summer House

Secrets of the Lighthouse


Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the beauty of the magnificent Tuscan villa that overlooks the sea just outside her small village. She likes to spy from the crumbling wall into the gardens and imagine that one day she’ll escape her meagre existence and live there surrounded by its otherworldly splendour. Then one day Dante, the son of the villa’s powerful industrialist owner, invites her inside and shows her the enchanting Mermaid Garden. From that moment, Floriana knows that the only destiny for her is there, in that garden, with Dante. But as they grow up and fall in love, their romance causes a crisis, jeopardising the very thing they hold most dear.

Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beautiful old country house hotel on England’s Devon coast has fallen on hard times after the financial crash of 2008. Its owner, Marina, advertises for an artist to stay the summer and teach the guests how to paint. The man she hires is charismatic and wise and soon begins to pacify the discord in her family and transform the fortunes of the hotel. However, he has his own agenda. Is it to destroy, to seduce, or to heal? Whatever his intentions, he is certain to change Marina’s life forever.

Spanning four decades and sweeping from the Italian countryside to the English coast, this new story by Santa Montefiore is a moving and mysterious tale of love, forgiveness, and the past revealed.

Please note this book has also been published with the title The Mermaid Garden


Author Profile

Born in England in February 1970 Santa Montefiore grew up on a farm in Hampshire and was educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University and spent much of the 90s in Buenos Aires, where her mother grew up. She converted to Judaism in 1998 and married historian Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha in London.

The following Biography, in her own words is Courtesy of  Santa Montefiore Official Website

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a writer. I dabbled in books throughout my youth, from children’s stories to rather naïve love stories as I got older. From the age of 12 I went to Sherborne School for Girls, which was a boarding school. There I excelled in English, which was lucky because I certainly didn’t excel at much else except for sport and music! I wrote stories for my friends, imagining romances between them and the spotty youths they fancied at Sherborne Boys’ School. I transformed them into Rhett Butlers and set them in humid, mosquito infested jungles, which I considered extremely romantic, having never been in one. This seemed to satisfy them and I was in great demand to write more. Fancying myself a bit of a novelist, especially after a writer friend of my mother’s read one and suggested I send it to a publisher, I attempted a novel. With little experience of love and life it wasn’t a surprise when it was rejected. The trouble was I hadn’t yet found a good story. That came later, when I went to live in Argentina.

I was 19. My Anglo Argentine mother arranged for me to work on an estancia on the Argentine Pampa for a year, teaching English to three young children. This turned out to be one of the best things my parents ever did for me for I fell in love. Not with a polo playing Argentine, although I did have an innocent flirtation, but with the country. I lost my heart to those flat, humid plains and still, after 5 books, I have not managed to retrieve it. You see, Argentina is intoxicating. The countryside is rich with the scents of eucalyptus and gardenia, the sound of horses snorting in the fields or thundering up the polo pitch, birdsong and crickets resounding across the park. The houses, colonial in style, are painted white and yellow with dark green shutters to keep out the stifling summer heat, and surrounded by brightly coloured flowers and red tiled terraces upon which one can sit and stare out for miles over that vast plain. It is difficult to see where the sky begins and the earth ends, the horizon is simply mist. One feels very small. I spent a lot of time on a pony, riding to the neighbouring estancia for tea with friends, cutting across the plain, through the long grasses alive with prairie hares. Little by little I began to feel that I was a part of the place.

Buenos Aires is a city heavy with the sense of nostalgia. When the immigrants arrived from all over Europe, lured by the promise of rich pickings and new lives at the end of the 19th century, they recreated in the architecture echoes of their own homelands to stave off the inevitable homesickness. Thus, the Colón theatre is reminiscent of the Scala in Milan, the plazas of Madrid, the tall roofed buildings of Paris, the palm tree lined avenues of the South of France. Cafés spill out onto pavements where the waiters are all over sixty and one can sit in the shade and listen to the melancholy notes of the tango wafting on the breeze, thick with the scent of jasmine and diesel.

I left Argentina after a year, having belonged. The following year I returned during my university holiday to find, to my dismay, that I no longer fitted in. The young people I had hung out with had either gone to the US to study or had boyfriends or girlfriends and didn’t go down to the farm so much anymore, preferring to be in the city. I didn’t have a job, I was a tourist. I had nothing to get me up in the morning and the friends I had made in shops and cafés in the streets where I lived had moved on. I felt a sharp sense of alienation as if I was watching it all through a pane of glass where the year before I had been on the other side. It was a difficult time and I cried all the way home on the plane. However, I didn’t realise it then but I had my story.

We have all had moments that we would give anything to live again. However much we try, time cannot be reversed. It changes us and those we were once close to. My first novel, published in 2001, 12 years after my first trip to Argentina, was a wander down memory lane for me and hence very cathartic. I was able to channel all my feelings of nostalgia, regret and longing into a novel that seems to have struck a chord with many people. I get wonderful letters. I am grateful for every single one and thrilled that through that book I have managed to give people something special.


Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Goodreads - Author Profile   Santa Montefiore Official Website    Wikipedia - Santa Montefiore

Twitter - Santa Montefiore    Facebook - Santa Montefiore  Amazon Author Page


Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

                                     
                                              Oleander Girl


Hardback:  288 pages                                                                                                
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2013
Source:The author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
First Sentence: I'm swimming through a long, underwater cavern flecked with blue light, the cavern of love, with Rajat close behind me.
Review Quote:"Oleander Girl" is a riveting and powerful exploration of family secrets, betrayal, love, and ultimately, the search for self. Divakaruni paints colorful characters on a rich tapestry of modern India, all still haunted by the past."--Shilpi Somaya Gowda "New York Times bestselling author of Secret Daughter "
My Opinion: I am ashamed to admit that it is a whole year since I read this book, so I feel that I cannot write a proper review in case my memory gets muddled. As I read so many books it can happen that one sometimes recalls incorrectly! This is why I really need to catch up with my backlog and then stay on track to write reviews immediately I finish. An early New Year resolution, but meanwhile I do remember that it was a thoroughly enjoyable read with a beautiful love story as its central theme. Particularly interesting was the Indian setting and culture as Korobi, the female protagonist embarks on a quest to discover the truth about her roots.


Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

From the bestselling author of One Amazing Thing, a sweeping, suspenseful, atmospheric coming-of-age novel about a young woman who leaves India for America on a search that will transform her life.

Beloved by critics and readers, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been hailed by Junot Díaz as a “brilliant storyteller” and by People magazine as a “skilled cartographer of the heart”. Now, Divakaruni returns with her most gripping novel yet.

Orphaned at birth, seventeen-year-old Korobi Roy is the scion of a distinguished Kolkata family and has enjoyed a privileged, sheltered childhood with her adoring grandparents. But she is troubled by the silence that surrounds her parents’ death and clings fiercely to her only inheritance from them: the love note she found hidden in her mother's book of poetry. Korobi dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents', and it seems her wish has come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high-profile business family.

But shortly after their engagement, a heart attack kills Korobi's grandfather, revealing serious financial problems and a devastating secret about Korobi's past. Shattered by this discovery and by her grandparents' betrayal, Korobi undertakes a courageous search across post 9/11 America to find her true identity. Her dramatic, often startling journey will, ultimately, thrust her into the most difficult decision of her life.


Author Profile
                                       
                                                  Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni



Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning author and poet. Her themes include the Indian experience, contemporary America, women, immigration, history, myth, and the joys and challenges of living in a multicultural world. Her work is widely known, as she has been published in over 50 magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, and her writing has been included in over 50 anthologies. Her works have been translated into 29 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Hindi and Japanese. Divakaruni also writes for children and young adults.Her novels One Amazing Thing, Oleander Girl, Sister of My Heart and Palace of Illusions are currently in the process of being made into movies. Her newest novel is Before We Visit the Goddess (about 3 generations of women-- grandmother, mother and daughter-- who each examine the question "what does it mean to be a successful woman.") Simon & Schuster.

She was born in India and lived there until 1976, at which point she left Calcutta and went to live in the U.S.A. She continued her education in the field of English by receiving a Master’s degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

To earn money for her education, she held many odd jobs, including babysitting, selling merchandise in an Indian boutique, slicing bread in a bakery, and washing instruments in a science lab. At Berkeley, she lived in the International House and worked in the dining hall. She briefly lived in Illinois and Ohio, but has spent much of her life in Northern California, which she often writes about. She now lives in Texas, which has found its way into her upcoming book, Before We Visit the Goddess.

Chitra currently teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the Univ. of Houston. She serves on the Advisory board of Maitri in the San Francisco Bay Area and Daya in Houston. Both these are organisations that help South Asian or South Asian American women who find themselves in abusive or domestic violence situations. She is also closely involved with Pratham, an organisation that helps educate children (especially those living in urban slums) in India.

She has judged several prestigious awards, such as the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award.

Two of her books, The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, have been made into movies by filmmakers Gurinder Chadha and Paul Berges (an English film) and Suhasini Mani Ratnam (a Tamil TV serial) respectively. Her novels One Amazing Thing and Palace of Illusions have currently been optioned for movies. Her book Arranged Marriage has been made into a play and performed in the U.S. and (upcoming, May) in Canada. River of Light, an opera about an Indian woman in a bi-cultural marriage, for which she wrote the libretto, has been performed in Texas and California.

She lives in Houston with her husband Murthy. She has two sons, Anand and Abhay (whose names she has used in her children’s novels).

Chitra loves to connect with readers via Social Media, links to sites listed below.


Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Goodreads Author Profile     Amazon Author Page    Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Twitter

Author's Official Website       Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Facebook

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton




Paperback:  416 pages                                                                                                 
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: June 2nd 2015 by Ecco 
Source: Local Book Club Choice.
First Sentence: The funeral is supposed to be a quiet affair, for the deceased had no friends.
Favourite Quote: “Every woman is the architect of her own fortune.” 
Review Quote: A fabulously gripping read that will appeal to fans of Girl With a Pearl Earring and The Goldfinch, but Burton is a genuinely new voice with her visceral take on sex, race and class . . . Burton writes great complex female characters (Observer)
Literary Awards: Specsavers National Book Award for Books Are My Bag New Writer of the Year (2014)Walter Scott Prize Nominee (2015)Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2014)Waterstones Book of the Year (2014)
My Opinion: The atmosphere of 17C Amsterdam is vividly and evocatively described in this beautifully written debut novel.  The characters and plot are all very mysterious and it was this suspenseful narration that kept me reading, because at first it took me awhile to get into the story. I enjoyed much more than I expected to and would recommend to all fans of historical fiction.  Have already added her second novel The Muse  to my reading wishlist. Will also be looking forward to the BBC One adaptation of Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist in three parts which will be aired in 2017. 




Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam—a city ruled by glittering wealth and oppressive religion—a masterful debut steeped in atmosphere and shimmering with mystery, in the tradition of Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, and Sarah Dunant.

“There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed . . .”

On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office—leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.

But Nella’s world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist—an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways . . .

Johannes’ gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand—and fear—the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation . . . or the architect of their destruction?

Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.


Author Profile



Jessie Burton was born in 1982 and lives in London. She studied at Oxford University and the Central School of Speech and Drama, where she appeared in productions of The House of Bernarda Alba, Othello, Play and Macbeth. In April 2013 her first novel, The Miniaturist, was sold at an 11-publisher auction at the London Book Fair, and went on to sell in 29 other countries around the world. It was published by Picador in the UK and Holland in July 2014, and the USA in August 2014, with other translations to follow. Radio 4 commissioned it as their Book at Bedtime in July 2014. Her second novel The Muse was published earlier this year.



Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Goodreads - Author Profile    Amazon - Jessie Burton Page    Jessie Burton - Official Website

Picador - Author Profile.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

The Deal by Tony Drury




Paperback: 248 pages                                                                                                 
Genre:Romantic thriller
Publisher: City Fiction 2012
Source: The author's publicist in return for an honest and unbiased review.
First Sentence: Ascent...yes, ascent, he pondered, as he quietly relayed the melody in his mind.
My Opinion: Having thoroughly enjoyed Megan's Game the debut novel from this author, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to read and review The Deal his second novel.
This is a romantic thriller, a genre appeals to many, an easy read that keeps you turning the pages as the plot builds. The setting in the financial district and a publishing house I found of particular interest.

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

The pressure is on for corporate financier Oliver Chatham. As the City languishes in recession, he is under contract to raise two million pounds for a publishing company.
But it’s not only money at stake – if he is successful, Amanda Wavering, woman of his dreams and sister of the publishing house’s chief executive, will consummate their relationship; if he fails, no deal.
As if this wasn’t challenge enough, Oliver’s finance house becomes caught up in a battle of ferocious egos, as new bloods battle with the old guard for the future of the business. While old school boss Charles Harriman fights his own demons and the terrifying kidnap of his child, fearless corporate researcher Sara Flemming takes her reputation – and her life – right to the edge in her bid to expose the dodgy dealings of a Russian mafioso.
Will Oliver get what he bargained for – or will he learn the hard way that you should never mix sex and the City?



Author Profile



Biography in the Author's own words, Courtesy of Goodreads.

I was born in Birmingham and being the son of a Bank Manager I started my career in banking. In the 1960′s job security was very important. I joined the Midland Bank, Kidderminster, where I married the manager’s secretary Judy.

I was transferred to a Birmingham branch and from there my career changed. I joined a Secondary Bank much to the dismay of my parents.

In 1973 I was moved to London and promptly ran into the Secondary Banking Crisis and did well to keep my job I realised I was intellectually limited (ok: thick), so I wrote the text book on Finance Houses. It was published by Robert Maxwell who offered me a job as Managing Director of Waterlow Publishers. A year later he told me to “f**k off”, but he paid my contract.

The next ten years were spent building up a financial publishing company which went onto the stock market. I managed to buy the local squash club as well. I also had partnerships in a print company and a design studio. This experience was all very helpful in my career at the present time.

By now, I had written six financial books, the best being ‘Investment Clubs: the low risk way to stock market profits’, which was sponsored by Barclays Stockbrokers and sold 25,000 copies.

I set-up ‘ProShare’ in the early 1990′s to help shareholders form Investment Clubs.

St. Helen’s Capital was born in 1998 and by 2006 I had built it into the most successful PLUS Markets advisory firm.

I sold out of St. Helen’s in 2006 and promptly walked into the latest recession which virtually wiped me out.

I am still married to Judy (pictured). We have a son Chris and a daughter Emma, a son-in-law Simon (a barrister) and a daughter-in-law, Samantha. Chris and Samantha have now given us our first grandchild, Henry, who is the most gorgeous baby ever and I love him to bits.

I worked hard for the Conservative Party and was an Association Chairman and a County Councillor. I left when David Cameron betrayed the Party by entering into a totally unnecessary Coalition with the Lib-Dems (minority Government was staring him in the face). However, I have now rejoined in support of Andrew Selous, our local MP.

On my 60th Birthday, I decided I needed a new hobby, something a bit less energetic. I started writing fiction, mainly because I’ve spent most of my life telling stories. ‘Megan’s Game’ was my first book, which took five years to write and it was published in May 2012, followed by ‘The Deal’ in October 2012 and then ‘Cholesterol’ in June 2013. Very excited that my fourth novel ‘A Flash Of Lightning’ was released on the 21st November 2013 and most recently, 'The Lady Who Turned' was published in September 2014.

A bit of luck came my way and some producers who had read ‘Megan’s Game’ said they would like to make it into a film……..The script is now written and the film will be released in 2014. The producers loved the locations, Aberdovey in Wales, the City of London and the South of France.

Another film company in London has just bought the rights to my fourth novel 'A Flash Of Lightning' and is currently in development.



Photographs and biographical information courtesy of the following sites.

Tony Drury- Facebook   Amazon Author Profile   Official Author Website - Tony Drury

Twitter Profile   City Fiction Publishing - FB Page    City Fiction Publishing - Website    

 Goodreads Author Profile

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson



Hardback:  384 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton 2014
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentences: They came for him at midnight. there was no warning, no time to reach for the dagger hidden beneath his pillow.

Favourite Quote: “I had an appointment with a ghost. It seemed impolite not to attend.” 
Favourite Quote: I opened my mouth to reply, but could not think what to say. How could I sit at supper and describe what I had witnessed to a pair of innocent young ladies? A boy of thirteen beaten to death: rotten corpses teeming with rats; waking to find my friend with his throat cut, the life stolen from his bright black eyes.
(The second quote is not exactly a 'favourite' but this quote was to me the heart of this story, not for the faint hearted.)

Literary AwardsCrime Writers Association - Historical Dagger Award

My Opinion: I enjoy reading historical fiction but that combined with a murder mystery, meant that this is a book I would never have picked up to read had it not been a Bookclub choice. Now having finished it, I have to admit that it was better than I anticipated. The period details and setting are meticulously described and I shuddered more than once as I was transported inside the debtors prison of the C18. The novel is set over just a period of a few days that the protagonist Tom Hawkins spends in this infamous jail. Based on actual events, with characters drawn from real people, everything described is based on first hand accounts from publications of the era. Certainly not for the faint hearted, some of the descriptions are particularly savage. If you have the stomach for such graphic detail and enjoy a mystery then this is one for you.  


'The Devil in the Marshalsea' Précis Courtesy of Goodreads

London, 1727 - and Tom Hawkins is about to fall from his heaven of card games, brothels and coffee-houses to the hell of a debtors' prison.

The Marshalsea is a savage world of its own, with simple rules: those with family or friends who can lend them a little money may survive in relative comfort. Those with none will starve in squalor and disease. And those who try to escape will suffer a gruesome fate at the hands of the gaol's ruthless governor and his cronies.

The trouble is, Tom Hawkins has never been good at following rules - even simple ones. And the recent grisly murder of a debtor, Captain Roberts, has brought further terror to the gaol. While the Captain's beautiful widow cries for justice, the finger of suspicion points only one way: to the sly, enigmatic figure of Samuel Fleet.

Some call Fleet a devil, a man to avoid at all costs. But Tom Hawkins is sharing his cell. Soon, Tom's choice is clear: get to the truth of the murder - or be the next to die.


A twisting mystery, a dazzling evocation of early 18th Century London, THE DEVIL IN THE MARSHALSEA is a thrilling debut novel full of intrigue and suspense.


Author Profile






Antonia Hodgson was born in Derby in 1971. She attended Littleover Community School where she first studied the time of the early Georgians in A-level History. She graduated with a degree in English Literature from Leeds University in 1994 and she went to work for Harcourt, Brace.

Hodgson had spent nearly twenty years in the publishing business rising to editor-in-chief at Little, Brown before she published her own first novel. As an editor she had worked with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne and the American novelists Nora Roberts and Elizabeth Kostova. Hodgson's first novel, A Devil in the Marshalsea, was set in the time of the early Georgians, William Hogarth and the Southwark prison the Marshalsea. Hodgson believes that the Georgian period was more intriguing than the Victorian era which is usually considered to be more culturally important. The book was submitted anonymously to the publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, because she was known in the publishing industry. Her first book won the Crime Writers Association's Historical Dagger award as well as being long listed for a first novel award
 The Devil in the Marshalsea her debut novel, is  the first in a series to include the protagonist Tom Hawkes. The second in the series The Last Confession of Tom Hawkins was published earlier this year.  The author  lives in London.



Photograph and biographical information courtesy of the following sites.

Goodreads - Author Profile  Wikipedia - Antonia Hodgson   Twitter Profile 

Facebook - Antonia Hodgson Author     Official Author Website - Antonia Hodgson

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Florence Grace by Tracy Rees






Paperback: 535pages.                                                                                                 

Genre: Historical Romantic Fiction
Publisher: Quercus, June 2016
Source: Lovereading Reader Review Panel
First Sentence: The Damn pony had bolted again.
Favourite Quote: Love is a strange and mystical force. It leads you down avenues you would never otherwise tread. It is always-always -about so much more than the coming together of two people.
Review Quote: Florence is such a strong, intriguing character and the plot is so clever, real and truthful.  The whole book feels so very wise, as if it contains half the answers to life (Joanna Courtney, author of the The Chosen Queen).
My Opinion: When I was recently offered the opportunity to read and review this title, despite never having read the authors previous novel, it sounded interesting so I jumped at the opportunity. So I have now discovered another writer of historical romantic fiction that I can turn to when I am in the mood for this genre.  
The heroine of the novel is a spirited young Cornish girl who one day finds herself unexpectedly part of a wealthy London family and she is thrown into a complete change of lifestyle. Not an easy or happy transition for her, but true to character Florence survives, to find out how you will just have to read for yourself. 
An enjoyable relaxing read that left me feeling contented, just what I needed. Recommended to anyone that enjoys finding a story to loose themselves in away from the stresses of the modern world. 



Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:


Florrie Buckley is an orphan, living on the wind-blasted moors of Cornwall. It's a hard existence but Florrie is content; she runs wild in the mysterious landscape. She thinks her destiny is set in stone.

But when Florrie is fourteen, she inherits a never-imagined secret. She is related to a wealthy and notorious London family, the Graces. Overnight, Florrie's life changes and she moves from country to city, from poverty to wealth.

Cut off from everyone she has ever known, Florrie struggles to learn the rules of this strange new world. And then she must try to fathom her destructive pull towards the enigmatic and troubled Turlington Grace, a man with many dark secrets of his own.



Author Profile


Tracy Rees was the winner of the Richard and Judy 'Search for a Bestseller' Competition and her first book, Amy Snow, was a Richard and Judy and Kindle bestseller. A Cambridge graduate, she had a successful eight-year career in nonfiction publishing and a second career practising and teaching humanistic counselling before becoming a writer. She lives in Wales.


Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.


Amazon Author Profile      Tracy Rees - Twitter Profile    



Saturday, May 21, 2016

Dear Dad by Giselle Green



Ebook:  4314kb Print 383pages                                                                                                
Genre:   Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Yule Press March 2016
Source: The author in return for an honest and unbiased review. 
First Sentence:  "You're...what do you mean you're not coming?"
My Opinion:   A very emotional story line evolving around three protagonists, Nate, Adam and Jenna.  As in her previous novels the author's writing flows as she narrates the story first person via the characters of Nate and Jenna. A thoughtful novel with young Adam, a troubled little boy, looking for happiness in his life, the character that causes Nate and Jenna to examine their own past lives, current situations and to wonder about their futures.  If you enjoy contemporary fiction this should not disappoint, as you will laugh, cry and feel involved with all the characters by the time you finish reading.   


Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Three people longing to find love. Connected by one big lie.
Handsome, 28-year old, Nate Hardman is a frontline reporter with a big problem. Suffering from shell-shock and unable to leave his house, he’s already lost his social life and his girlfriend. Now his career prospects are sinking fast.
9 year-old Adam Boxley who lives alone with his ageing nan, also has big problems. Neglected at home and bullied at school, he’s desperate to reach out to his dad – and that’s when he sends his first letter to Nate. Only Nate’s not who he thinks he is. Will he help? More importantly – can he?
Across town meanwhile, caring but impulsive teacher Jenna Tierney really wants to help Adam - except the feisty redhead has already had enough of teaching. Recently hurt by yet another cheating boyfriend, Jenna’s now set her sights on pursuing a dream career abroad ... only she’s about to meet Nate - her dream man who’ll make her re-think everything.
The big question is; can three people desperate to find love, ever find happiness when they’re only connected by one big lie?



Links to my earlier reviews   

 Pandora's Box  Falling For You   Little Miracles   and  Finding You



Author Profile







Born in Chiswick, London, UK.  Giselle Green was brought up in Gibraltar from the age of seven to eighteen when she returned to the UK to study Biology at King's College London, followed by an MSc in Information Science at the City University. She is also a qualified Astrologer, with a particular interest in medieval astrology.
Giselle now lives in Kent with her husband and their six sons.

A fuller biography appears on her website here        


Photographs, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.


Goodreads Author Profile       Amazon Author Profile     Giselle Green - Twitter


Author's Official Website - Giselle Green   Facebook Profile - Giselle Green Author