Carrie by Stephen King is one of those classic King books that everyone has heard about – or they’ve seen the movie. This month I decided to raid my husband’s Stephen King collection and try some of this author’s earlier books. Carrie was Stephen King’s very first published novel and it almost wasn’t published after Stephen threw his draft away. Luckily, his wife found it in the trash, dusted it off and urged him to keep working on it. And the rest is history. Continue reading
Regular readers of my blog will know how much I love anything written by Jojo Moyes. So I was excited to get my hands on her latest release The Giver Of Stars. I pretty much devoured this historical fiction book set in 1930s Kentucky in a day. I just couldn’t put it down!
Set in Baileyville, Kentucky, during the Depression, it tells the story of a remarkable group of women who form part of the WPA’s horseback mobile librarian programme – bringing books and reading to people living in remote mountain areas.
Though the characters in this book are fictional, they are inspired by the real life women who took part in this scheme which ran from 1935 to 1943. Jojo weaves a fascinating tale of a small community where many welcome the spread of books and reading, while others oppose the idea of women promoting literacy. Continue reading
Night Music by Jojo Moyes joins a fast growing list of books I’ve read by Jojo. It all started when my husband decided to add to the few Moyes books in my collection by tracking down second-hand copies of her other books. Now I have ten of her books!
Night Music is a story about grief, family, music and house renovations. Isabel Delaney is a recently widowed violinist with two children. She’s always taken a backseat in parenting as she was travelling around playing in orchestras while her husband looked after the kids. Following his death, she finds out that her family is in a mountain of debt and they can no longer afford their mortgage or the children’s nanny. Continue reading
Jojo Moyes is an automatic buy author for me. Foreign Fruit has been sitting on my bookshelf for quite some time, so I was happy to finally get around to reading it. Set in the 1950s and present day (early 2000s), Foreign Fruit takes place in the seaside town of Merham. It’s a place where people don’t like change — even when it’s greatly needed.
In the 1950s section of the book we meet two friends: Lottie Swift and Celia Holden. Lottie came to live with the respectable Holden family when London was evacuated during the war and then never went back to live with her mother. Continue reading
A Lifetime of Impossible Days by Tabitha Bird tells the unforgettable story of Willa Waters aged eight, 33 and 93. In 1965, eight-year-old Willa receives a mysterious box. Inside is a jar of water and the instructions: ‘One ocean: plant in the backyard.’ In doing so, Willa creates a time portal that allows her to visit her future selves.
In 1990, Willa is 33, a wife and the mother of two small boys. She’s dealing with dark memories from her tragic childhood. When she encounters her eight-year-old self in the garden it sends her spiralling out of control.
Whisper Network by lawyer turned author Chandler Baker has been compared to Big Little Lies and I can see why, but it didn’t quite measure up to my expectations. Set in a Dallas law firm, it follows four female characters through the before, during and aftermath of a life-changing experience. Sloane, Grace and Ardie are all attorneys (and friends) dealing with work and personal issues. Rosalita is a cleaner working at the company who will also be affected by what’s about to happen.
At the heart of their work issues is their boss Ames whose past behaviour has impacted them all. When a new female lawyer joins their team, things are about to go downhill fast. Continue reading
Beartown by Fredrik Backman is one of those books I’ve been seeing around everywhere for a long time. When I discovered a copy at a second-hand book sale I went to recently, I finally picked it up.
Beartown is a small, struggling town nestled deep in the forest in Sweden. But this sporting town felt like it could be anywhere – in Canada, America, even Australia if you swapped hockey for rugby league. Beartown doesn’t have much going for it besides its ice hockey team. The townspeople’s lives revolve around the ice rink and the fortunes of their team echoes the fortunes of the town.
This season a win by the junior hockey team in the national championships could change everything for the teenage players, the club management and trainers, their families and the rest of the town.
I discovered Christina Lauren books back in March when I read Roomies. Since then I’ve read The Unhoneymooners and Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating. Earlier this month I picked up a fourth Christina Lauren book – Dating You Hating You – and this might be my favourite one yet!
Dating You Hating You is very much in the same vein as The Hating Game by Sally Thorne and is your classic flirty foes storyline in a workplace setting. I really enjoyed it. Carter and Evie are Hollywood talent agents from rival agencies who are introduced by mutual friends at a Halloween party (they both dress as Harry Potter characters). They hit it off despite the rivalry and it seems they are heading into a budding romance. BUT then their rival agencies suddenly merge. They are told by their mutual boss that there might only be one position for them in the new company. So suddenly everything is very complicated as they are pitted against each other for the job. Continue reading
