Review: The Last Anniversary

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was speaking to an older lady reader at a book group once and the book we were reading seemed to have a lot of characters with all kinds of happenings. I said to the lady that the book seemed a bit scattered. Her reply was that in order to enjoy a book you should just immerse yourself in it. Just relax and let it all happen and the more the merrier.

When I remembered what she said I realized that this was going to be just that kind of book. So, I just sat back and immersed myself in the story and I didn't come up until it was finished.

It was a fantastic story that I can see might be a bit complicated or confusing if you didn't just relax.

As the story opens, Connie has just died. She is the older sister of Rose. They own a small island in Australia called Scribbly Gum. When they were young girls they had an adventure that changed the whole course of their lives.

A lovely story with lots of twists, turns and mysteries to keep you reading until the end.

View all my reviews

Review: Blessings

Blessings by Anna Quindlen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Skip is working hard as an overall handyman for Lydia Blessing, after a spot of trouble with the law, basically due to keeping the wrong company.

One morning Skip discovers a cardboard box near the garage where he is living. He discovers an abandoned newborn baby girl. He decides that if he was to report the find it would make the child's life into a circus so he therefore decides to keep the baby and care for it himself.

Babies tend to change things in the lives they touch and this baby is no exception.

I enjoyed listening to this very precious story.

View all my reviews

The Ballroom by Anna Hope

The Ballroom by Anna Hope
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the story of a workhouse/asylum in Yorkshire in the early 1900's. The main characters were Ella and John, two patients and Charles, the doctor in charge.

It was a love story, but also a history of the eugenics program that was proposed in England at the time.

The treatment of these poor unfortunates was very hard to read about but at the same time I feel it is important from a historical POV to be aware of what did happen at that time and what can happen again if we are not watchful.

A good read.

View all my reviews

The Liar by Jennifer Wells

The Liar: A gripping story of dangerous obsession by Jennifer Wells
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Who could have anticipated the twists and turns involved in a simple story of a woman in 1926 who lost her baby in the first few hours of its life.

Emma is married to a doctor, who is a nice enough fellow but the marriage seems loveless and lifeless. She can't move on from the loss of her child nine years previous. Unfortunately some very unsavory characters clue in to her obsession with her dead baby. These characters devise a plot to extort money from her while leading her to believe that her baby lived.

For the first half of the book I really had no idea how this story was going to unfold and I could never have predicted it. So unlike many reviewers who say that they could already tell "who done it", this was not the case with this book.

A well thought out plot and an intriguing read.

View all my reviews

Rubbing Stones by Nancy Burkey

Rubbing Stones by Nancy Burkey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a terrific debut novel that I found very hard to put down. Dr. Jane O'Neil a psychiatry professor in the US has been having difficulties with her teenaged son, Michael, who seems to be going off the rails a bit. Desperate to connect with her son and help him she books the family in for a trip to Africa to help at a medical clinic. The two boys, Michael and Jake, talk her into taking them on a rafting trip for a few days before they begin at the clinic. They set off to enjoy their adventure.

Meanwhile in Botswana, another family finds themselves in problems when their oldest son is falsely arrested in Zimbabwe. The younger brother and sister decide that they must go and help their brother.

These two unlikely families come together in an unpredictable way.

I will not ruin the story by giving it away here in this review. If you like adventure with a few crocodiles thrown in, you will love this book.

An excellent read.

ARC from Netgalley

View all my reviews