General Chat

Due to a holiday looming for me this will be a four week run, although of course reviews can be put in any time after the review thread is posted. It is just easier for me to do this on my desk top rather than my IPad.

So suggestions for this time will be reviewed and new suggestions made, on Friday 26 April.

Meanwhile your suggestions for this time would be appreciated please.

From Perse

he Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

(OH heard review on radio and read it and he does not read much fiction but enjoyed this one)

It is a story about love, life and lobsters...Meet Don Tillman.Don is getting married.He just doesn't know who to yet.But he has designed a very detailed questionnaire to help him find the perfect woman.One thing he already knows, though, is that it's not Rosie.Absolutely, completely, definitely not.Telling the story of Rosie and Don, Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project is an international phenomenon, sold in over thirty countries - and counting.Don Tillman is a socially challenged genetics professor who's decided the time has come to find a wife. His questionnaire is intended to weed out anyone who's unsuitable. The trouble is, Don has rather high standards and doesn't really do flexible so, despite lots of takers - he looks like Gregory Peck - he's not having much success in identifying The One.When Rosie Jarman comes to his office, Don assumes it's to apply for the Wife Project - and duly discounts her on the grounds she smokes, drinks, doesn't eat meat, and is incapable of punctuality. However, Rosie has no interest in becoming Mrs Tillman and is actually there to enlist Don's assistance in a professional capacity: to help her find her biological father.Sometimes, though, you don't find love: love finds you. (it is definitely not a romance and has some very amusing moments)

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

Zoe Baxter has spent ten years trying to get pregnant, and after multiple miscarriages and infertility issues, it looks like her dream is about to come true. But a terrible turn of events leads to a nightmare--one that takes away her unborn baby and breaks apart her marriage to Max. In the aftermath, Zoe throws herself into her career as a music therapist. When Zoe is hired by Vanessa, a school counselor, their relationship blossoms, to Zoe's surprise, from business to love. Eventually Zoe and Vanessa want to start a family, using the frozen embryos she and Max still have. Meanwhile, Max has found peace at the bottom of a bottle--until he is redeemed by a charismatic pastor determined to fight the "homosexual agenda" that has threatened traditional family values. This mission becomes personal for Max when Zoe and Vanessa want permission to raise his unborn child. AsThe Washington Postsaid, "Picoult has become a master--almost a clairvoyant--at targeting hot issues and writing highly readable page turners."Sing You Home" is no exception and is sure to have people grappling with difficult questions about what defines a family.

And it comes with a CD of songs...

Footprints in the Sand by Sarah Challis

When Emily Kingsley arrives at the church for her eccentric Great Aunt Mary’s funeral, she is still grieving for her broken relationship with the vain, mean and unfaithful Ted, and has little sorrow to spare. At the wake afterwards she is dismayed to learn the contents of Mary’s will. Emily and her cousin Clemmie must go to Mali, where they are to travel by camel into the Sahara Desert to scatter her ashes.
Clemmie, fanciful and rootless, is thrilled at the chance of adventure. Emily is not. With immense reluctance, she agrees to travel to Mali, and find Timadjlalen, a place in the desert that no one has ever heard of. Why Mary chose it as her final resting place she cannot imagine, and the thought of a hot, pointless trip is almost too much to bear. But once Emily and Clemmie set foot on the Saharan sand, and begin to uncover Mary’s sixty year old secret, they come to understand why they must complete her journey.


Zelda’s Cut by Philippa Gregory
Desire, Betrayal and shifting identity combine in this chilling contemporary novel.
Isobel Latimer is trapped by her need to be a good woman, by massive secret debt, and by the burden of impeccable literary reputation. Everyone wants a cut of her talent, her time or her money, but only she knows there’s nothing left to give. In desperation, Isobel and her agent, Troy, conspire to create a shameless blockbuster with an author to match. Zelda is born.
Zelda can do everything that Isobel cannot, the unspeakable is said, taboos are broken and desires are unleashed. Troy revels in the wildness but Isobel senses menace behind the beautiful mask, and she longs for the safety of her husband and home. But, when she returns the family have changed......

Will try tosuggest a couple this time Ann.
Will have to check which books seems easy to get hold of first.

Back later,
Tess

Raven Black by Ann Cleeves

It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour Catherine Ross. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance . . . The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man ' loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when police insist on opening out the investigation a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine's neighbours nervously lock their doors, whilst a killer lives on in their midst.

Sweet Temptation by Lucy Diamond

Maddie’s getting it from all sides. Her bitchy new boss at the radio station humiliates her live on air about her figure, her glamour-puss mum keeps dropping not-so-subtle hints that Maddie should lose weight and her kids are embarrassed to be seen with her after the disastrous Mums’ race at their school sports day. Something’s got to change… Maddie joins the local weight-watching group expecting more humiliation but instead finds two unlikely allies – bitter divorcee Lauren who, despite running a dating agency, has signed off romance for ever and shy Jess, the beautician, who’s desperate to fit into a size 10 wedding dress for her Big Day.

"Drowning Ruth" by Christina Schwarz

At the close of World War One, Amanda Starkey leaves the city, and travels to her family's farm in rural Wisconsin to recover from a traumatic love affair.

Instead,she is caught up in a tragedy that will take her beloved sister's life, and leave Amanda to raise her niece, Ruth.
What happened that terrible night when Mattie died?
Why does Ruth say she can remember drowning?
For years the consequences of the tragedy reverberate;
the truth, when it is revealed, is both dramatic and extraordinarily miving.

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"Ursula, Under" by Ingrid Hill

A dangerous rescue attempt in Michigan has captured the attention of the entire country. A two-year-old girl has fallen down a mine shaft. Ursula Wong is from a poor family and referred to by one member of the t.v. audience as "half-breed trailer trash" not worth all the expense.

But Ursula is the last of her family line, and her story explodes into a gorgeous saga of culture, history and heredity.
Ursula's forebears include a second-centuary BC Chinese alchemist; an orphaned consort to a Swedish queen; and her great-great-grandfather, Jake Maki, a miner who died in a cave-in aged twenty-nine.

Goodbye Piccadilly by Betty Burton

year is 1911, and Otis Hewetson, 17 years old, is spending her summer holiday with her parents in Southsea. There she meets Jack and Esther Moth, the children of a police inspector, little suspecting that their future destinies are intertwined.

Peaches for Monsieur le Curé (Chocolat 3) by joanne Harris
At first, the village with its old cobbled streets and its little shops and ramshackle houses appears the same as always to Vianne, but when she meets her old adversary, Francis Reynaud, Monsieur le Curé, Vianne realizes that something is not quite right and there is a reason why she is needed back in Lansquenet. The wind of Ramadan that has blown Vianne back to the tiny village has already brought a community of Moroccan Muslims to Lansquenet and these new incomers have brought significant changes to village life along with their aromas of spices and mint tea. As Vianne stays longer than she initially intended, she begins to see that the heady cultural mix of people in her old village is causing more problems than would at first be thought, and Reynaud may need more of Vianne's special brand of help than she is fully prepared to give. And when a mysterious veiled woman and her daughter come to Lansquenet, and shun almost everyone around them, things become very interesting indeed.

Hi Ann

I hope you don't mind me asking but are any of them in audio books?

I don't know Susan as they have only just been suggested, probably could check on Amazon. Do you ask for a reason? :-)

I like the look of a couple of them and audio books come in handy when on the boat....or when in the bath....very relaxing.

Check with Amazon. Let us know please. :-)

footprints in the sand is £13-95 on iTunes. Probably more expensive on audiobooks.co.uk


Sing you home is £15-95

Sweet temptation is £6-95

The ones I would like to hear are not on there :-(

The Story Teller. - Jodi Picoult.

Sage Singer is a young woman who has been damaged by her past. Her solitary night work as a baker allows her to hide from the world and focus her creative energies on the beautiful bread she bakes.

Yet she finds herself striking up an unlikely friendship. Josef Weber is a quiet, grandfatherly man, well respected in the community; everyone's favourite retired teacher and Little League coach.

One day he asks Sage for a favour: to kill him. Shocked, Sage refuses.

Then Josef tells her that he deserves to die - and why.

What do you do when evil lives next door? Can someone who's committed horrendous acts ever truly redeem themselves? Is forgiveness yours to offer if you aren't the person who was wronged? And most of all - if Sage even considers his request - would it be murder, or justice?
----------------------------------------------------
Life after Life. - Kate Atkinson
if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

I need to nudge this one up.

Nudge as we are still some missing. Maybe they are away for Easter.

I suggest Halfway to Hollywood by Michael Palin

We all know him forf being in Monty python and his travel programmes, but this book covers diaries from the 1980's. A tale essentially of a jobbing comedian, and always being mistaken for eric Idle, he tells a tale of his life, the suicide of his sister, John Cleeses enthuiasm for money, Terry Jones accident prone life, as welll as funny lines and gossip, I have been told this is an excellent read

The anonymous Venetian by Donna Leon

Insp Brunetti's team find a dead man dressed as a woman, but all is not as it seems
and a tangled web of deceit , money and a bank, mean Brunetti cannot leave Venice's stifling heat to go on holiday with his family.

My daughter has introduced me to these books and they are excellent

OK I will leave this until mid day then put the vote thread up if I have not heard from Helen or Dee (Vintage) both of whom are not on the boards. :-)

Michelle is not going to be with us this time round as she has two lots of visitors.

Vote thread going up. Dee (Vintage is not joining us now and Helen must be away. But everyone had the dates so I will go ahead with the vote.

a late suggestion from Mersey who has been poorly

My Secret Sister - Helen Edwards


Helen grew up in a pit village in Tyneside in the post-war years, with her gran, aunties and uncles living nearby. She felt safe with them, but they could not protect her from her neglectful mother and violent father. Behind closed doors, she suffered years of abuse. Sometimes she talked to an imaginary sister, the only one who understood her pain. Jenny was adopted at six weeks and grew up in Newcastle. An only child, she knew she was loved, and with the support of her parents she went on to become a golfing champion, but still she felt that something was missing. . . Neither woman knew of the other's existence until, in her fifties, Jenny went looking for her birth family and found her sister Helen. Together they searched for the truth about Jenny's birth - and uncovered a legacy of secrets that overturned everything Helen thought she knew about her family. Happily, they also discovered that they were not just sisters, they were twins. Inspirational and moving, this is the story of two women brave enough to confront their past, and strong enough to let love not bitterness define them.
About the Author
Helen Edwards became a theatre nurse before training as a psychotherapist and hynoptherapist. She is now retired and lives in Northumberland. Jenny Lee Smith was the top professional woman's golfer in Europe. Today she lives in Kent and breeds dogs.

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The Last Gift - Carla Acheson
The Last Gift is based on historical events prevalent during the Victorian era.

The year is 1866. Maggie Tanner is a young girl born to an impoverished family in the slums of London. As a child she witnesses her grandmother’s death and her mother giving birth to stillborn twins. With her father’s constant insobriety and lack of employment it seems they are all destined for the workhouse.

Acquiring a position as a servant to a middle class family in the suburbs, Maggie encounters only further turmoil by falling pregnant to the family’s eldest son. She returns home only to be plunged into the social stigma of bastardy and shame.

Maggie does all she can to save her baby from a disease-ridden orphanage and takes drastic decisions to save both the child and herself, but when her pain and loss continues to haunt her for years to come, one unexpected day, one last gift changes everything.

Sorry Ann I will delete on other thread..... :-(