The truth About you - Susan Lewis

Lainey Hollingsworth has spent her whole life on the outside of a secret. Her mother would never discuss the reasons she abandoned Italy when Lainey was a baby, and has lost touch with the family she left behind.

But just as Lainey is free to find out about her roots, her husband hits her with a bombshell that shatters the very foundations of their marriage. Another secret.

Shaken, but more determined than ever to find out who she really is, Lainey takes her children to Umbria in search of answers. 

What she ginds in the sleepy, sun-baked village of her birth turns her world inside out.

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I had only read one other Susan Lewis before 'Behind Closed Doors' and yes it was good but in places a little predictable.  The Truth About you , on the other hand was much better and had my full attention.  I certainly didn't see the first twist in the tale coming although I knew there was a secret to be told.   You learn the truth quite early on and from then on it is more around Lainey trying to decide what will happen going forward, will she still have a marriage.  Then there is her daughter who seems to be taking completely the wrong path in order to be popular with one particular friend who may not be much of a friend at all.  And lastly there is the crux to the whole thing what was it that Lainey's mother ran away from in Italy and why was it she would never return.  

All in all a very good read and one I would recommend. 

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I am a little behind my time with blogging again at the moment.  I finished this one just over a week ago so you may find there will be another post very shortly as I am coming to the end of my next book already which is 

Happy reading one & all 

Mx

Autumn reads

I don't know about anyone else but there is a definite nip in the air this morning, the sun may be shining but it feels pretty chilly to me. I think Autumn is most definitely making it's presence felt over the last few days and therefore it must be time to sort out the Autumn reads.  

There hasn't been much movement on the bookshelf this summer with a total of 8 books being read off the bookshelf and  8 from my kindle. 

As you can see from the above picture there are still quite a number on the bookshelf and fare number on the Kindle at quick count I think there is around 30 in all.

August was a very slow month of reading for me with four books being read. 

His Other Life by Beth Thomas, Distant Hours by Kate Morton, Missing You by Louise Douglas and my return to childhood read Heidi.

I had really looked forward to reading His Other Life but have to say I was left a little disappointed and I don't think it would be one to recommend particularly.  I had (stupidly) looked at reviews of Kate Morton's Distant Hours, which were not that favourable.  I have enjoyed all the previous Kate Morton's I've read and had therefore been looking forward to reading this one.  I'm glad I put the other reviews to the back of my mind as I really enjoyed Distant Hours even more so than The Riverton House which had rave reviews and if you've not read this one I would recommend you do,

Missing You by Louise Douglas was a lovely romantic summer read and one I would recommend.

That just left my return to my childhood read which for the month of August was Heidi and I enjoyed it just as much now as I did forty years ago. If you have a young daughter and are looking for something from your childhood for them to read, I would recommend Heidi.

I am again late with this post so I have already started my Autumn reads, first off the bookshelf was Susan Lewis's The Truth About You, this came as a two book set for Christmas and has been patiently waiting it's turn.  I first read Behind Closed Doors from the set of two and although it was a good read I didn't think it was as good as The Truth About You and out of the two it would be this one I would recommend for reading.

I am now working my way through Stephen Fry's Memoir 'More Fool Me'.  This is his third memoir following on from where the Fry Chronicles left off. I had enjoyed the first two and I was in no doubt that I would enjoy this one too and so far I have not been left disappointed.

As per usual I like to pick a book of the month and my choice for August is

Well that's me done.

I am taking part in Laura's Year in Books Project 2015 if you like take part just click on the link.

Mx

Missing You - Louise Douglas

Fen works in a bookshop and is devoted to her young son, Connor, but she keeps herself to herself. Haunted by guilt and a terrible secret. Fen lives a compromised life, isolated from her family, far from home and too afraid of the past to risk becoming close to anyone.She is constantly looking over her shoulder, knowing that one day the truth will catch up with her.

Sean on the other hand, is enjoying a seemingly perfect life. He has a successful career, lives in his dream home and adores his beautiful wife, Belle and their six year old daughter, Amy, That is until the day Belle announces she has found someone else and wants Sean to move out.

Circumstances throws Fen  and Sean together. Slowly their quiet friendship turns into something much deeper and the joy they find in one another eventually gives them the confidence to trust and love again. But will the past tear them apart just as they find happiness?

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If you are looking for a holiday read I would recommend this one to you. 

It's approximately 376 pages and is set out across 53 short chapters making it an easy pick up put down whilst you're on your hols.

I can't really add anything to the blurb above as that basically is the story in a nutshell and if I tell you anymore there won't be anypoint in you reading the book.

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Moving on and sticking with my kindle reads I have started my childhood returned read this morning and for the month of August it is................

Happy reading one & all

Mx

Distant Hours - Kate Morton

Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother's emotional distance masks an old secret.

Evacuated from London as a thirteen year old girl, Edie's mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe, and taken to live at Milderhurst Castle with the Blythe family,

Fifty years later, Edie too is drawn to Milderhurst and the eccentric Sister Blythe. Old ladies now, the three still live together, the twins nursing Juniper, whose abandonment by her fiance in 1941 plunged her into madness.

Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother's past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst Castle, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a longtime for someone to find it.

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This is he second novel by Kate Morton and the fourth one I have read.
When I read reviews for Distant Hours they weren't as favourable as those for The Riverton House and The Forgotten Garden, but actually I thought this one to be better than The Riverton House.

You are lead to believe that either Edie's mother has something do with the fact that Juniper's fiance abandons her, but this couldn't be further from the truth.
You are then lead to believe that Juniper herself may have caused his abandoning her on the evening she was to meet her sisters, but actually it all stems back to the story of The Mud Man a family tale their father wrote many years before.

I would recommend that if you are a Kate Morton fan but not gotten around to this one yet that you should go a head and give it ago before her fifth novel The Lake House comes out in the Autumn.

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Moving on I am sticking with my kindle reads as it's so much easier on trains and I have picked

I'm around 100 pages in and so far it's pretty good.

Happy reading one and all

Mx

His Other Life - Beth Thomas

Grace's new husband Adam seems like the perfect package. Good looking, great job, completely charming - almost too good to be true. So when Adam suddenly disappears from Grace's  life, she is left bewildered and heartbroken. And with a lot of unanswered questions. Ash she tries desperately to find him, Grace opens a Pandora's box of secrets and lies - and starts to learn that Adam wasn't so perfect after all. 

What shameful secrets was her husband hiding? Is Grace in danger? And can she survive the truth? However terrible it may be....

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I am a little behind in posting about this one I finished it last week but heyho sometimes life just gets in the way of things doesn't it.

So His Other Life is essentially about Grace and her husband Adam.  You soon get to learn that Adam is a bit of a control freak but one night he returns home from work asks Grace what takeaway she would like, leaves the house and never returns. 

She reports his disappearance to the police who find his car in a car park in Yorkshire, in a place that neither of them to her knowledge have ever visited before. 

Grace then receives phone calls from a man named Leon who she has never spoken to before but seems to know an awful lot about her. 

She is left wondering what secrets has her husband been keeping from her and has he left of his own accord or is someone or something stopping him returning to her.

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When I first started reading this one I thought it was going to be a real page turner but as time went on it seemed to be a lot of the same thing and I had almost worked out how it was going to end by the time I got to the middle of the book.

It left me a little disappointed if I'm honest but as a holiday read that you can pick up as and when it would hold your attention and you wouldn't loose the plot (if you know what I mean).

So from the disappointed I have now moved on to a novel on my kindle.

I had read all of Kate Morton's novels apart from this one and with her knew book being released in the Autumn felt I definitely had to get through this last one.

Therefore my latest read is Kate Morton's Distant Hours. 

I like the way she weaves through the novels between the present and the past.

It's not everyone's favourite Kate Morton novel but I am about half way through and I am enjoying it as much as I have her previous ones. 

I'll let you know when I have finished it. 

Happy reading one & all

Mx

The Year in Books July

It's been feeling a little like the Mad Hatters Tea Party around here.

I can't believe we are already approaching the second week in August and I have not yet posted about my books from July.

It has been a busy time around here and most of the time I still feel a bit like the white rabbit that I am going to be late for a very important date.

I managed five books through the month of July.

Perfect Daughter is the latest offering from Amanda Prowse.  I lovely this ladies work, everything from the covers of her novels to the characters she creates.  Perfect daughter is about Jacks Morgan, a wife, mother and carer for her elderly mother.  She covers all the everyday goings on that happen in normal family life for some of us, but in her usual sensitive way of writing. 

Take Me Home is the second novel of Daniela Sacerdoti that I have read.  It is set back in Glen Avich and is a story of love, loss and rediscovery. Inary Monteith is at a crossroads. Still trying to put her life back together after a broken romance from three years ago.  Inary Monteith returns to Glen Avich to say goodbye to her sister who is coming to the end of a long illness, but whilst there gets the chance to find out things about herself she had long forgotten.

 Still Alice is the second Lisa Genova novel I have read.  Alice is a successful Professor at a University, travelling all over the country giving lectures.  She has everything she could have wanted and yet this is all about to be taken away from her as she is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers at the age of 50.  As I am a lady of a similar age to the character of this book you can imagine how many times I have compared myself to Alice's character whenever I forget things or can't place a word.  

    

Like so many I had eagerly awaited the release of Harper Lee's Go Set A Watchman. To Kill A Mocking Bird is one of my all time favourite books.  Go Set A Watchman is set twenty years later and Jean Louise is now a young woman.  She has returned home to visit her elderly father but she is about to realise the man she idolized as a child may not be quite as perfect as she had always thought. I read this one in a matter of days not able to put it down.  I did enjoy it but if I had to pick I think To Kill A Mocking Bird is still my favourite.

What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, was my return to childhood read for July.  I read all the What Katy Did books as a girl and went on to share them with my own daughter.  What I hadn't realised is that Jacqueline Wilson,also a lover of these books, has written a modern take on this classic novel. It will be interesting to see how she interprets Katy in the modern day. 

And so it is decision time which of these will I choose as my book of the month?

It's funny I can more or less have an idea of which one it will be before I have finished reading them all but actually this month it's turned out not to be the one I thought it would be.

My book of the month for July is 

I am continuing to take part in Laura's Year in Books Project 2015 if you want to take part just click on the link.

Happy reading one and all

Mx

What Katy Did - Susan Coolidge

Katy Carr is untidy, tall and gangling and lives with her brothers and sisters planning for the day when she will be 'beautiful and beloved, and as amiable as an angel'. An accidental fall from a swing seems to threaten her hopes for the future but, Katy struggles to overcome her difficulties with pluck, vitality and good humour.

How many of you read the 'What Katy Did' series of books?  This was another one that I went on to read to my daughter when she was a little girl. I wonder if this is one she remembers will have to check. For anyone who doesn't know Katy Carr is the eldest of five children and who lives with her father who is a doctor and her aunt Izzie. Sadly her mother died and Aunt Izzie came to live with them to help her father look after the children. Katy is a bit of a Tom boy and gets herself in all sorts of scrapes.  Unfortunately Katy chooses not to listen to her aunt when she is told not to use the new swing and has an accident which finds her confined to her bed unable to walk and with the possibility that she may not walk again and so the story goes on to deal with how Katy will cope with her new situation.  The strangest part of reading this book again was that whilst travelling home from work I was as usual listening to Simon Mayo and he was interviewing Jacqueline Wilson about her new book. What I hadn't realised is that she has now written a modern version of this story called 'Katy'.  My friends daughter is a huge JW fan and is eagerly awaiting the release of her new book.  It will be interesting to see how she has interpreted Katy's story.

Moving on it is back to the bookshelf and and the book I have selected next is

His Other Life

Beth Thomas

Happy reading one & all

Mx