Hobbies and Crafts

2 books as usual.Review date 5 January 2015

The year I met you by Celia Ahern

Jasmine loves two things: her sister and her work. And when her work is taken away she has no idea who she is.
Matt loves two things: his family and the booze. Without them, he hits rock bottom.
One New Year’s Eve, two people’s paths collide. Both have time on their hands; both are at a crossroads. But as the year unfolds, through moonlit nights and suburban days, an unlikely friendship slowly starts to blossom.
Sometimes you have to stop still in order to move on…
Original and poignant, The Year I Met You will make you laugh, cry and celebrate life.


The flavours of love by Dorothy Koomson

It's been 18 months since my husband was murdered and I've decided to finish writing The Flavours of Love, the cookbook he started before he died. Everyone thinks I'm coping so well without him - they have no idea what I've been hiding or what I did back then to protect my family. But now that my 14-year-old daughter has confessed a devastating secret, and my husband's killer, who was never caught, has started to write to me, I know it's only a matter of time before the truth about me and what I've done will be revealed.

The Letter - Kathryn Hughes

1973

Tina Craig has one mission in life – to escape her drunken, abusive husband. She works all the hours she can to save up enough money to leave him. She spends as little time as possible in the violent household she is forced to call home, even volunteering at a charity shop at the weekend to escape Rick’s clutches. One day, whilst sorting through the pockets of a second-hand suit which has been donated to the shop, she comes across an old letter. It is still firmly sealed and unfranked. Unable to resist the pull of curiosity, Tina opens the letter. It was written on 4th September 1939. She is so moved by the contents and bemused as to why the letter was never delivered, she embarks on a quest to find out what became of the writer and his intended recipient, a journey with consequences she could never have predicted.


1939

Billy Stirling knows he has been a fool, but he also knows how to put things right. On 4th September, 1939 he sits down to write a letter that will change his life forever. He slips it into his jacket pocket and, with a spring in his step, and full of optimism, he heads for the nearest post box. How was he to know that his heartfelt missive would not be read for another 34 years, and then by a complete stranger?

The Letter tells the story of two women, born decades apart, but whose paths are destined to cross and how one woman’s devastation leads to the other’s salvation




The Mill River Redemption - Darcie Chan

osieDiSanti has lost her husband and house in the fire and we meet her when she and her two little daughters Rose and Emily are on their escape from New York to Josie`s only living relative, her mother’s sister Ivy, to Mill River. Ivy has her own bookshop and decides to take her niece in although they don’t know each other at all.

Josie and the girls easily settle to their new life in Mill River, and it’s also thanks to an anonymous person, who tends to help people of Mill River in their hour of need. Josie gets a house across the street from Ivy and the life goes on, with Josie starting to train to be a real estate agent after the girls went to school. But when the girls are adults, a tragedy happens, a tragedy that tears the sisters apart for years.

Fast – forward some years on and we meet the sisters and Ivy at Josie’s funeral. Desperate to bring her daughters together even from beyond her grave, Josie writes a will. Rose and Emily will get their inheritance but first they must move to Mill River again and work together for clues that are going to allow them to obtain the inheritance

Midnight Exposure – by Melinda Leigh
When two hikers disappear, their hometown in Maine blames the blinding storms. But the truth is far more sinister. Unaware of the danger, tabloid photographer Jayne Sullivan follows an anonymous tip to find the most reclusive sculptor in the art world. Instead, she finds sexy handyman Reed Kimball—and a small town full of fatal secrets.
Five years ago, Reed buried his homicide detective career along with his wife. But when a hiker is found dead, the local police chief asks Reed for help. Why was a Celtic coin found under the body? And where is the second hiker? Avoiding the media, Reed doesn’t need a murder, a missing person, or a nosey photographer. Then Jayne is attacked, and her courage is his undoing. Reed must risk everything to protect her and find a cunning killer.

Night Moves – by Nora Roberts
Was she foolish or wise to follow her instincts?The house had stood vacant for ten years, but Maggie Fitzgerald knew she could call it home. An award-winning songwriter, Maggie had sought peace and solitude from the Los Angeles celebrity hounds after her husband's accidental death. Instinct had brought her east, to the small Maryland town of Morganville.
Instinct also told her that Cliff Delaney, owner of a local landscaping company, was just the person to revitalize her property. But once that project began, the remains of a dead man were discovered--and everyone she knew, including Cliff, seemed to have a motive for the killing. Could she trust her instincts again--or would the truth be her undoing?

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty and born while her father, George, was in the Dog and Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn't married. Bunty had never wanted to marry George, but here she was, stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster, with sensible and sardonic Patrica aged five, greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored, and Ruby...
Ruby tells the story of The Family, from the day at the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail beautiful Alice and her children, like flowers in amber, to the startling, witty, and memorable events of Ruby's own life.

The Unseen by Katherine Webb

From Katherine Webb, the author of the acclaimed international bestseller The Legacy, comes a compelling tale of love, deception, and illusion
A vicar with a passion for nature, the Reverend Albert Canning leads a happy existence with his naive wife, Hester, in their sleepy Berkshire village in the year 1911. But as the English summer dawns, the Cannings' lives are forever changed by two new arrivals: Cat, their new maid, a disaffected, free-spirited young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law; and Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby.
Quickly finding a place for herself in the underbelly of local society, Cat secretly plots her escape. Meanwhile, Robin, a young man of considerable magnetic charm and beauty, soon becomes an object of fascination and desire. Sweltering in the oppressive summer heat, the peaceful rectory turns into a hotbed of dangerous ambition, forbidden love, and jealousy—a potent mixture of emotions that ultimately leads to murder.

Ann has reminded me that we have read Behind the Scenes at the Museum before - sorry, must have been a senior moment! So i'm suggesting this-

The Story of Us by Dani Atkins

Emma Marshall can't wait to marry her childhood sweetheart, Richard. But then a tragic accident changes everything, and introduces a stranger, Jack, into her life. Gorgeous and mysterious, Jack is like no-one Emma has met before. But Richard is the man she loves...
Two different men.
Two different destinies.
How will Emma end her story?

Tess, bless her, has got no internet at the moment so she has hand written and snail mailed suggestions to me (gave me three to choose from). So: Tess's choices are.


A Week in December by Sebastian Faulkes. London the week before christmas 2007 Seven wintry days to track the lives of seven characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book-reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on skunk and reality TV; and a Tube driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop.

With daring skill, the novel pieces together the complex patterns and crossings of modern urban life, and the group is forced, one by one, to confront the true nature of the world they inhabit. Sweeping, satirical, Dickensian in scope, A Week in December is a thrilling state of the nation novel from a master of literary fiction.

2nd one from Tess:

The World below by Sue Miller

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 not 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....

None of Cath's feelings can be easily predicted by the reader, but all of them ring true. She finds her grandmother's diary and begins to fill in the stories that Georgia had hinted at over the years. What Cath discovers in her grandmother's journal is a secret that has lost its power to shock; and that very wearing-away of taboo adds to the poignancy of Georgia's restricted life. Her story unfolds against a backdrop of Cath's more immediate griefs and concerns, and begins to recede as Cath's San Francisco life returns to claim her. Miller's prose appears effortless, but is like the gestures of a magician, that conceal how the trick is accomplished. The result is a sage, continually surprising novel about finding peace-of-mind in a combination of habit, love and self-determination.