Hobbies and Crafts

Review date will be 9th April.

2 books please as usual.

Replacing Don't let me go as it doesn't seem to be available on Amazon at all in paperback or Kindle. I bought it reduced in a garden centre but I am thinking it is not really available anywhere else. Hope that is ok????


Voices from the sea by Evelyn Hood
It is 1865 and Eppie a young widow with a child can't believe her luck when she gets the position of housekeeper to wealthy wisower Alexander Geddes. He and his teenage son duncan are a dream to work for, but daughter Lydia is moody, spoiled and tempermental- just like her grandmother, who is convinced that Eppie has designs on Alexander. But Eppie is no gold digger and Alexander Geddes has intentions that are purely honourable. Intentions that begin to lean in the direction of Lydia's governess - Eppie's sister Marion.

Yet, although the attraction is mutual, its development is slow. For there are other tensions in both the household and the community. refusing to train as a physician, Duncan is set on following his heart's desire, to side with his stepmother's kin and persue his dreams of quarrying the precious local marble. Eppie, now almost a member of the family feels partly responsible for the rift between father and son. She feels even more responsible when Duncan returns home with a stranger who has a mysterious past.



Season of Storms by Susannah Kearsley

In the early 1900s in the elegant isolated villa Il Placere, the playwright Galeazzo D’Ascanio lived for Celia Sands. She was his Muse and his mistress and the inspiration for his most stunning and original play. But the night before she was to take the stage in the leading role, Celia disappeared.
Now, decades later, in a theatre on the grounds of Il Placere, Alessandro D’Ascanio is preparing to stage the first performance of his grandfather’s masterpiece. A promising young actress- who shares Celia Sands name but not her blood- has agreed to star. She is instantly drawn to the mysteries surrounding the play- and to her compelling compassionate employer.
And, even though she knows she should let the past go, in the dark- in her dreams- it comes back....

The Twins by Saskia Sarginson

Isolte and Viola are twins; inseparable as children, their adult lives have diverged dramatically. Isolte is a successful fashion writer with a boyfriend and London flat. Viola has a serious eating disorder and is desperately unhappy. What happened one summer to affect their lives so deeply? What secrets do they carry? A gripping and complex novel.

The Real Katie Lavender by Erica James

Katie Lavender has always thought she was pretty unshockable, until a year after her mother's death she receives a letter from a solicitor telling her that the man she thought was her father, in fact wasn't. Her real father, a man named Stirling Nightingale, has for years been building a trust fund for her. And now she's of an age to collect it.
But Katie's not interested in the money. She wants to know about the man instead. So decides to do some snooping. She tracks him down to a beautiful riverside home on the night he's hosting a birthday party for his 90-year-old mother. And as she's hovering outside, Katie is mistaken for a replacement waitress - an opportunity just too good to miss. And so Katie discovers that the Nightingales are far from your normal family ... But what makes a normal family anyway?

Mo Hayder--- Skin

When the decomposed body of a young woman is found near railway tracks just outside Bristol one morning, all indications are that she's committed suicide. That's how the police want it too; all neatly squared and tidied away.

But DI Jack Caffery is not so sure. He is on the trail of someone predatory, someone who hides in the shadows and can slip into houses unseen. And for the first time in a very long time, he feels scared.

Police Diver Flea Marley is working alongside Caffery. With the traumas of her past safely behind her, she's beginning to wonder whether their relationship could go beyond the professional. But then she finds something that changes everything. Not only is it far too close to home for comfort - it's so horrifying that she knows that nothing will ever be the same again.

And this time, no one - not even Caffery - can help her ...


Nora Roberts-- Heaven and Earth

Ripley Todd just wants to live a quiet, peaceful kind of life. Her job as a sheriff's deputy keeps her busy and happy, and she has no trouble finding men when she wants them. She's perfectly content, except for one thing: she has special powers that both frighten and confuse her, and though she tries hard to hide them, she can't get them under control. Distraction soon arrives in the handsome form of MacAllister Booke - a researcher who's come to investigate the rumours of witchcraft that haunt Three Sisters Island.

Right from the start, Mac knows there's something extraordinary about Ripley Todd. But before Ripley and Mac can dream of what lies in the future, they must confront the pain of the past. For the island shelters centuries of secrets - and a legacy of danger that plagues them still.

x Jill

The Mountains Between - Julie McGowan

Mother’s hand swung round and slapped Jennie across the ankles. “Don’t be so disgusting!” she hissed. “You were never wanted, you know!"" ... Never wanted ... never wanted ... never wanted ...

Despite a comfortable living, surrounded by lush farmlands, Jennie’s life under the critical eye of her tyrannical mother is hard. Desperate for affection, she stumbles upon dark secrets and into the uncertain murmurings of love.

On the other side of the scarred mountain, and in the wake of a disaster that tears through his family and their tight-knit mining community, Harry finds the burden of manhood thrust upon his young shoulders. Through the turmoil of the Depression years, life for both Harry and Jennie takes many unexpected turns, with love won and lost. But the onset of World War II brings changes that neither could have imagined."


A Half Forgotton Song - Katherine Webb

With a failed marriage and a failing art gallery business, Zach Gilchrist is wondering what to do next when an intriguing portrait and a phone call from a publisher prompt him to make a decision.
Zach's possible family link and obsession with renowned artist, Charles Aubrey, takes Zach to Blacknowle, a village on the Dorset coastline and the place where Zach hopes to write a book on Aubrey's life and work.
Charles Aubrey and his family had spent several summers in Blacknowle back in the 1930s. Zach's research into Aubrey leads him to Mitzy Hatcher, an elderly eccentric woman who had spent a lot of time with the Aubrey family as a young girl.

As Zach begins to unravel the past, Mitzy's story is slowly revealed. Her memories and secrets of those long ago summers reveal her deep bond with the Aubrey's and her obsessive love for Charles Aubrey, a love which led to tragic consequences.
Interwoven with this is the present-day storyline concerning Zach and Hannah Brock. Hannah is Mitzy's nearest neighbour and carries her own secrets

A Year Like No other – Pauline Lawless
Four women arrive in Paris to spend a year there. Each has different expectations, fears and dreams of what this year will bring. Ashling is thrilled when her banker husband is asked to relocate to Paris to work on a financial project which is all very hush-hush. She has always loved France and feels she will be living a dream come true. New Yorker Taylor has no choice but to join her husband when he too is posted there. A spoilt, prescription-drug addict, the only thing that makes the move bearable for her is all that designer shopping on Rue St Honoré. Felicity is devastated at the thought of leaving London when her husband is chosen to work on the project. Nervous and uptight, how can she face a whole new world? Jazz is a beauty. She is also clever and ambitious but her biological clock is ticking loudly. Then in Paris she meets the man she once loved and lost. He’s married but surely this is her last chance of happiness. Yet Paris manages to surprise them all . . .

In a Moment – Caroline Finnerty

Adam & Emma are a couple being torn apart by their past. Their relationship is only held together by a thread. As their marriage disintegrates around them, Adam tries desperately to salvage it – while Emma does everything in her power, not only to avoid the issue, but to avoid him.

Jean McParland has long been living her own nightmare, battling with her son Paul whose violent outbursts have terrorised her and his younger siblings in their own home. Torn between her love for her eldest son and fears for the other children, Jean has shied away from taking decisive action . . . while their lives continued to spin out of control.

Then, in just one moment, Adam, Emma and Jean’s lives became inextricably linked and were changed forever.

Shame there are only 7 of us at the moment. Just Tess to reply today, not seen her around lately so hope she is ok.

Maybe we shall have to recruit Ann <3 :-)

I have tried before but people think they will be tied and have to give very intelligent reviews! :-D

Intelligent review, that counts me out lol

xx Jill

Lol.

I will give it until tomorrow, I have PMd Tess, if I have not heard by then we will vote :-)

Sorry everyone - just seen this despite answering Ann's pm telling her that it was invisible.

Got a couple of books in mind.
Off to check that they are still available.


Watch this space!!!

The Hundred Secret Senses Amy Tan

Olivia Yee is only five years old when Kwan, her seventeen-year-old half-sister from China, comes to live with the family and turns her life upside down. She is bombarded day and night with Kwan's stories from the world of Yin - romantic tales of ghosts who were once bandit maidens, strange accounts of missionaries and mercenaries from another world. Olivia just wants to lead a normal American life.

For the next thirty years, Olivia unhappily endures visits from Kwan and her ghosts, who appear in the living world to offer advice on everything from restaurants to Olivia's failed marriage. But just when Olivia cannot bear it any more, the revelations of a tragic, hundred-year-old family secret give her the opportunity to reconcile these ghosts from the past with dreams of her future -----
Set in America and China this is a tragi-comedy of those whose lives are caught between two cultures.

Second suggestion.

The World Below Sue Miller

Catherine Hubbard is at a crossroads in her San Francisco life.
She is twice divorced - although she knows public opinion only seems to allow for one marital mistake - and her three children are grown and scattered.
Then news comes that she has inherited her grandmother Georgia's home in Vermont.
Catherine finds in Vermont nort only the ghosts of her own past but those of Georgia's as well.
Georgia's diaries, discovered in the attic, reveal Georgia's deepest secrets - her first encounter with the young doctor she will later marry, the tragic misunderstanding at the heart of their relationship, and the lie that seals their fate .....

If I am not too late !! soree just realised so will vote ?

Sorry Jan, I thought you were still taking a break, my apologies if I got it wrong.