‘It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.’ Charles Frances Potter – US theologian & author (often attributed to Oscar Wilde)
One of the best things about a holiday is the free pass it gives to enjoy more than the usual amount of reading time without the pressure of clock-watching.
I zip through a pretty good number of books each month keeping a record of them all as I go. Thanks to the type of cancer meds I’ve been on for the past five and a half years (only 18 months to go), I don’t sleep as well as I’d like to, which also provides nocturnal reading opportunities.
The recent holiday has been a boon for reading, mostly on my Kindle because it’s the travelling bookworm’s best friend. I have to admit to finding myself reading a number of… let’s call them ‘less weighty’ novels over this period. Nothing dreadful, but amusing enough to keep me interested until the last page.
In terms of good writing here are my four favourites from the month so far:
1) The Keeper of Happy Endings – Barbara Davis
Rory (Aurora) is struggling. Her fiancé has gone missing while working for a medical organisation in Africa. There has been no news for months and she’s living in limbo, missing her Dad and with a strained relationship with her widowed mother.
When an old, fire-damaged building in Boston seems to be calling her, she decides to be proactive and try to rent it with a view to turning it into the gallery she’s been longing for. Her mother disapproves and has other plans for her only daughter.
As the renovations begin, Rory discovers a box that wasn’t destroyed in the fire and tries to return it to her landlady, a former Parisian seamstress, who has been decidedly secretive and reluctant to meet her. So begins a new chapter in life for both Rory, her mother Camilla, and Soline as their stories are explored, hearts shared, tears shed and curious coincidences revealed. Are happy endings only to be found in fairy tales or can real life sustain them too?
This book had a number of truly satisfying layers, constructed and woven together with great skill. I’m not always a fan of novels where the time line is split but Barbara Davis managed to evoke the fear and uncertainty of wartime Paris as well as 1980s Boston with equal conviction and authenticity. Her characters remember, reflect, and discover things about themselves through the narrative giving a truly three dimensional feel to their world. Emotional, without being overly dramatic or simplistic, I was captivated by this book and he unfolding story.
2) Into The Storm – Cecilia Ahern
Dr Enya Pickering practices in Dublin with her husband, Xander, but her life is teetering on a knife edge as she faces the year in which she will turn 47 – the same age her mother was when she drowned. Enya had been just twelve years-old.
Kneeling on a wet road in the dark one stormy night, giving CPR to Ross, a boy she at first feared was her son, Finn, while relentless rain soaks her to the bone, her mental and emotional stability is unravelling as old memories are triggered and her trauma responses quicken. Enya leaves her husband and son to find space to recover and re-stabilise herself in s rural practice in Abbeydooley. There she meets Margaret Rochford, the property manager of her new rental house, who is facing her own demons. Determined to get a grip, Enya begins by wanting to bring light into her new home and cut down the strange tree in the garden. But, it’s a rag tree, used by those who believe in the folklore that says if you tie fabric on it belonging to a loved one you can aid healing and forgiveness. The locals are having none of Enya’s plan of destruction.
Reading her mothers’ old articles linked with the seasons and laced with pagan references, Enya feels her connection with her mother, Brigid, is still strong, but is she being pulled into situation which will ultimately drown her too? A judgemental husband, a distant son and questions about what happened to Ross that wretched night torment her. Enya is harassed by two other men who now know where she lives and the guarda who are still investigating the accident. Was helping Ross’s mother, Ursula, the act of a friend or a villain? Lies, deception, and a threatening sense of claustrophobia run through the novel. Does Enya need psychiatric help or a good night of sleep?
A well crafted novel following the ancient seasons and annual cycle while exploring themes of motherhood, light, life, death, guilt and the power of maternal love with some well placed twists.
3) A Terrible Kindness – Jo Browning Wroe
William Lavery is nineteen years old when he completes his training as an embalmer, having followed a path into the family business with his Uncle Robert and partner Howard, against his widowed mother’s wishes. Called as a volunteer from his award dinner to the Aberfan disaster (1966) he spends a traumatic couple of days preparing the bodies of children for burial.
The novel traces William’s time as a Cambridge chorister from ages 10-14 where he met his friend, Martin, and where his remarkable voice was trained.
The combined PTSD from both experiences colour his life as he shuns church music completely, becomes estranged from his mother and cannot face the potential tragedy of having children of his own who he might subsequently lose.
This is a remarkable debut novel, deftly constructed with multiple layers and pulsating themes that shed light on the pain of trauma responses, how they’re triggered and the healing power of unconditional love within the bonds of family and friendship. It will stay with me for sometime.
4) The Second Chance Book Club – Stephanie Butland
September is exhausted. She goes to work at the supermarket and comes home to Shaun, all the time wondering if they can make ends meet until the end of the month.
Everything changes when she receives a letter from a lawyer. September comes into an inheritance in the shape of a house in Harrogate and a substantial amount of money. It does to light that although she knew she was adopted when she was very young, she’d had a family the whole time. It’s an emotional bombshell.
Discovering that Shaun has, effectively, been stealing from her all along, and wrapping her head round suddenly having a home of her own, with a garden, September begins to navigate the unfolding story of her life through friends of her Aunt Lucia who she can’t remember but who are all part of a book club that she ran at her house and is still meeting there with September’s permission.
What new surprises will there be for September along the way, and have her adoptive parents (now passed away) prepared her for any of them? The books her aunt so carefully selected, wrapped and kept for each birthday and the day she hoped her niece would return, may have been chosen to shed light on the dilemmas she faces.
This is a beautifully story with some wonderful characters, told between the time lines of September’s Aunt Lucia’s story and her mother, April’s rocky path and untimely death until the lines run together. It’s a story of hope, kindness and friendship. Butland shows us how we can grieve for things which haven’t happened just as much as for the things that have. She leads her readers to ask probing questions about the nature of family and gently shows us how love can cause each of us to bloom regardless of our circumstantial journeys.
I hope you’re enjoying your own book selections.
I keep track of mine on Goodreads and set a target number to read each year. That’s for my own benefit, but do pop over there and take a look if you’d like to. I usually write a review for them as well. No-one wins a prize for having read the most books and really, what’s the point? The important thing is to enjoy them.
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