Any novel about sisters appeals to me as I am one of three daughters. Rose, Bean and Cordy return to their childhood home to nurse their mother. Each has secrets from the rest of the family. Rose, the sensible eldest sister followed her father into academia and is uncertain about joining her fiancee in a new life abroad. Bean found their small town life stifling and left for New York at the earliest opportunity. Mounting debts force her to return home and to reevaluate her life and priorities. And Cordy , the youngest is a free spirit, constantly on the move. But the secret she is carrying means she must settle down.
The sisters love each other but don’t like each other very much. Being thrust back into their old small college town means they must bond together to help their mother and each other. Beautifully written warm and absorbing.
August Pullman has a severe facial disfigurement as he says ‘I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse’. He has been taught at home by his mum but at the age of 10 his parents decide to send him to mainstream school. This novel tells the story of his first year at Beecher Prep. Told from his own perspective and those around him this is an insight into how cruel people can be when faced with someone who is different. But it is also a heartwarming story of overcoming adversity. Uplifting and inspiring. Wonder-ful.
When Beth’s parents separated she lives with her father in England as her mother has returned to her Hungarian homeland. Every summer for 7 years Beth holidays with her mother, Marika, and has such a wonderful time that she is always loathe to return home. However, during the summer when she is 16 Beth learns something so cataclysmic that she catches the next plane home and never sees her mother again. She is forced to confront the past when she receives Marika’s Book of Summers. An emotive engaging first novel. I loved it!
Matilda The Musical (based on the Roald Dahl book) won seven Olivier awards earlier this month. No reader can fail to be entranced by Matilda who teaches herself to read and mystifies her parents who think she should be spending her time more usefully -watching TV! With the help of the lovely librarian, Mrs Phelps, she selects her reading matter. Dahl describes ‘The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives..She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village’Has the act of reading and the joy it brings ever been described more perfectly?
The Bergamots are an affluent family who have recently relocated to New York. The son, fifteen year old Jake rejects a younger girl at a party. She responds by emailing him an explicit video of herself. He is unable to believe his eyes so,unthinkingly, forwards it on to his best friend. His friend forwards it on to a few people and suddenly the clip has gone ‘viral’.
This book deals with the repercussions of the affair on the family and how their ‘beautiful life’ begins to unravel. In fact, their lives will never be the same again. The parents, Richard and Liz, are self-absorbed and it is difficult to care about them. Complete chaos is unleashed by the careless click of a mouse, and as such is a important lesson for our times.
This beautifully written novel spans half a century and three generations of the same family. Iris thinks she spies her lost lover in a cinema newsreel, so deposits her daughter, Ruth with her grandparents and rushes off to the Middle East to search for him. Ruth never lives with her mother again.
Ruth, looking for security, marries Harry and has two daughters, Isobel and Emily, in quick succession. When her marriage breaks down she is forced to abandon her girls and goes to live with her uncle.
A warm, engrossing read about love,loss and family.
Henry Skrimshander is a gifted baseball player at Westish College who trains every day and has total concentration out on the baseball diamond. A freak accident causes an end to his epic run of zero errors and he loses his mojo and his way. This novel is a campus novel (which I found very John Irving-esque) with a rich cast of characters: including the charismatic college Dean and his daughter fleeing from an unsatisfactory marriage Henry’s mentor and biggest fan Mike Schwartz and Henry’s roommate Owen. A thoroughly absorbing debut novel.
In a dystopian future Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12 of Panem. She has to hunt (illegally) to keep herself, her mother and younger sister from hunger. Every year 2 youngsters (a boy and a girl) from each district are randomally selected to take part in the Hunger Games, a televised reality show in which contestants must kill each other in order to win. When her younger sister, Primrose’s name is selected Katniss volunteers to go in her place.What follows is gripping,violent,tense and at times very touching.
I could not read this book fast enough. It is incredibly fast moving and impossible to predict what will happen next.
The Hunger Games is the first in a trilogy.My son, who is 16(I know, I don’t look old enough) read them all about 18 months ago on the recommendation of one of his friends. If I’d known how good it was I would have read them ages ago. I just dismissed them as teenage fiction, but I defy anyone of any age not to enjoy them - you’ll be hungry for more!
In honour of St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to draw your attention to this new novel from the Emerald Isle. Mark Casey has left the confines of his family farm in rural Ireland to study for a doctorate in Dublin. He often has to return home to help his father with a myriad of jobs on the farm; Tom feels that Mark’s future is the land and struggles to see the point of his life in academia - a source of great conflict to them both. Mark meets a solicitor, Joanne and they swiftly fall in love.
A double tragedy strikes and for both men life will never be the same again. Dealing with huge issues of love, loss, grief and duty; this is a fabulous novel. The prose is lyrical and beautiful - I doubt I will read a better-written novel this year.
(Cover shown is from the paperback edition, which is due out at the end of next month.)
