General Chat

Thanks Persey, glad we managed to catch you on a visit!

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

I really enjoyed this book:

In a tale spanning twenty-five years, a doctor delivers his newborn twin daughter during a snowstorm and, rashly deciding to protect his wife from the baby's affliction with Down Syndrome, turns her over to a nurse, who secretly raises the child. In a tale spanning twenty-five years, a doctor delivers his newborn twins during a snowstorm and, rashly deciding to protect his wife from their baby daughter's affliction with Down Syndrome, turns her over to a nurse, who secretly raises the child. On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this story that unfolds over a quarter of a century - in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by the fateful decision made that long-ago winter night. Norah henry, who knows only that her daughter died at birth, remains inconsolable; her grief weighs heavily on their marriage. And Paul, their son, raises himself as best he can, in a house grown cold with mourning. Meanwhile, Phoebe, the lost daughter, grows from a sunny child to a vibrant young woman whose mother loves her as fiercely as if she were her own.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter captures the way life takes unexpected turns and how the mysterious ties that hold a family together help us survive the heartache that occurs when long-buried secrets burst into the open. It is an astonishing tale of redemptive love.

Persey

I had this one ready:

Lost by Alice Lichtenstein

On a cold January morning, Susan a professor of biology leaves her husband alone for a few minutes and returns home to find him gone. Suffering from dementia, no longer able to dress or feed or wash himself without help, Christopher has wandered alone into a frigid landscape with no sense of home or direction. Lost.

A rather intricately woven story about three inimitable characters – they could well be real. The author takes you through their lives and the ways they try to survive

Persey

One more nudge for Perse.

Nudge!

Nudge for Perse.

Suggestions for Aug/Sept

The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

Antonia Fraser lays bare the battle of the sexes among the early Tudor ruling classes in a way that has never been done before in this biological survey of the women in Henry's life.

Dune by Frank Herbert
-tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices". Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and also grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.
The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a superhuman--he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the centre of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.
Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine and the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. (Just in case we really love it!)

From May who is on holiday

Precious Time by Erica James

The Girls by Lori Lansens

I have not read it.

x Jill

OK Michelle, maybe it was only you and me then. Anyone else?

Anne I was here when we read Lovely Bones, it can stay, I just wont read it if it does get picked and read the second book.

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

Lady Elizabeth Grey's husband was killed at the Battle of St. Albans and she desperately wants his lands back for her two little boys. She is tired of living in her parents' home and would like her independence. So she stands out in the road as the new king, Edward IV, rides by, holding their hands and hoping he'll see her. He does see her and takes note not only of her problems, but of her beauty, and before she knows it, Elizabeth is the queen of England and in almost over her head with politics and intrigue. She is a Woodville, though, and she will perservere, going to the edge to push her family as high as it can possibly go before her tower of cards topples around her.

The Visable World by Mark Slouka

The book begins with the narrator discussing his early life. His family are Czech, and his homeland seems vague and distant to him - just as the past can so often be. His memory is fragmentary, but there is one issue that seems to hold everything together - that his mother loved another man before she married his father. As you read the first part of the book, you get the sense that he is desperately trying to undertsand his family's history; not just their personal history but also their history in terms of race and culture, and the effects that the war had on them. The second part of the book is the love story - the stroy about his mother and the man that she loved.

x Jill

Better nudge this up.

It was some time back Tess.

Can't remember writing about Lovely Bones, Ann, although I have read it.
Might still have it on my shelves somewhere. So it is fine by me if it stands.

Did anyone else but me belong to greaders when we read Lovely Bones before? If not it can stand (and the best of luck with it!!!!)

Tomorrow When the War Began. by John Marsden.

Somewhere out there Ellie and her friends are hiding. They're shocked, they're frightened, they're alone. Their world has changed, with the speed of a slamming door. They've got no weapons - except courage. They've got no help - except themselves. They've got nothing - except friendship. How strong can you be, when the world is full of people trying to kill you?

Lovely Bones. by Alice Sebold.

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.This is Susie Salmon. Watching from heaven, Susie sees her happy, suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet . . .

Will be back on shortly to add my two titles

xx Jill

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

A fairy tale for grown-ups.
The story begins with a little girl who makes a wish one snowy night and ruins her life. She grows up with a splinter of ice in her heart untill one day, standing by her kitchen window, she is struck by lightening.
Instead of killing her, this cataclysmic event sparks off a new begining.
She seeks out Lazarus Jones, a fellow lightening survivor. He is her opposite, a burnung man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches.
As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both are forced to hide their most dangerous secrets - what turned one to Ice and the other to Fire.

The Ice Queen is a haunting story of passion, loss, second chances and the secrets that come to define us if we're not careful.


Sharp North by Patrick Cave


Set in the future ...
Mira lives quietly in a remote community in Scotland - untill one day she witnesses a stranger running for her life through the forest. Shot and killed in front of her, the woman's body is quickly removed, the only clue to her death a crumpled piece of paper, and a spot of blood in the snow.
Mira discovers the paper contains a list of names, including her onw, with another name she recognises and the word "watcher" alongside it.
Shocked, Mira suddenly begins t view her community with suspicion - and what she discovers throws her whole world into confusion....

Tess

Good grief is it that time already? I need about ten more hours in every day I think.

The Pindar Diamond by Katie Hickman

Step inside the hidden alleyways and secret gardens of seventeenth-century Venice. Discover an extraordinary tale of forbidden passion, mistaken identity and a priceless diamond.
This is a gripping and superbly told story that goes as deeply into history as into the human mind.

The Accidental Sorcerer by K E Mills

Gerald Dunwoody, a Third Grade wizard and lowly safety inspector for Ottoslands Department of Thaumaturgy, inadvertently blows up a factory while trying to save it. Summarily fired, Gerald takes a job in almost bankrupt New Ottosland as royal court wizard for King Lional the 43rd. To prove his powers to the doubtful king and his put-upon sister, Prime Minister Princess Melissande, Gerald turns a cat into a lion and transforms the dowdy princess into a literally bewitching fashion plate, but preventing war between New Ottosland and Kallarap and making a highly illegal dragon for the king may be beyond his will and abilities.


Both are paperbacks