MAILBOX MONDAY/IT'S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Mailbox Monday for July is being hosted by Book Obsessed.  I've come to the meme late since my Monday was spent out of Colombo and we got back home rather late.

The books that came in this week are

A housewife with a seven year itch, lusting after her old boy friend. I've not read something like this for yonks so definitely looking forward to this one. 

Mothers and daughters and the crisis of cultural identity. I can definitely identify with both!!!!

Set in rural Scotland. I like this scenario. 

With a cover like this and set in a Highland town, how could I resist. 

I'd go and live in Scotland tomorrow if I could be surrounded by structures like these! that graveyard scene is gothic!

Ideal escapist literature for me. I just conjure the rest in my mind......

After a drought of several weeks this is a golden lode for me.

Hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. I still don't know what I am going to start out with! It will all get read though.

A RURAL AFFAIR by CATHERINE ALLIOTT

I do so like summery light covers and this fitted the bill. Read about this author on a blog and I have such a towering pile of TBRs that I always like to tick one off.

Phil is killed in a bizarre cycling accident. Poppy should be the bereaved widow. She isn't. She is quite relieved to be free of Phil and she and the two children can live a life free of all rules and regulations (she always felt that she lived under an army commander whose wish was law in the house). Going on we discover that Phil is not pure as the driven snow, there is a story of infidelity and also one where he was planning on leaving Poppy. This is the biggest surprise for Poppy who thinks this is so out of character for the straight laced Phil who she obviously did not know very well.

We also have a fat inheritance and the chance for Poppy to do whatever she would like. We have the mistress on the sidelines and we have a whole rural community of men folk drawn to Poppy for different reasons - some just pure greed for the money and some attracted to Poppy herself. How Poppy handles the transformation of their lives in this small rural community is the story of much light hearted banter and serious philosophical thinking. 

The combination is so very good that it makes for a very good read. 

WHERE DID YOU GO BERNADETTE by MARIA SEMPLE

This review is long overdue and I do not know how on earth I missed it. 

The story was a good one but there was no punch at the end and that deflated me. 

Bernadette is a high flyer - eccentric, opinionated, different to all the other mothers who come to pick up their children but she is also someone who has the unswerving loyalty of her daughter Bee who realizes Mom is strange but she is anyway my Mom sort of thing.

Bernadette is an architect with winning awards behind her but someone who dislikes interaction with real people. Her life - every bit of it - is run by a virtual assistant from a call center in India and she finds this wonderful. The pinch comes when a trip to Antarctica promised to Bee for getting excellent grades has to be fulfilled. For someone who is averse to people this is going to be a tough call. Cooped up for weeks first on a ship and then on a station in Antarctica is impossible and Bernadette disappears.

I think this would be a book that could be turned into a movie. The drama and the entertainment are all there. The characters - all three of our main ones are quirky and eccentric in their own way and would make for wonderful copy. 

In the minority here where I did not love it. Maybe it is difficult for me to visualize the suburban parents of America and did not empathize with the family and neighbours enough! I liked to read this one and did finish it though I did not love it.

Weather here is good. Intermittently hot and humid with heavy rains as well, its certainly better than being hot all the time.

On the wedding side, we have got down to sari shopping and have narrowed our selection. Its nerve wracking that the bride just wants her Mother and elder sister to decide and buy!!!!

UNDER THE JEWELLED SKY by ALISON McQUEEN

I like books set in colonial India. I never seem to tire of them. This was absolutely brilliant. 

We have a very middle class English family. Father is a doctor, mother housewife and one child. Doctor enjoys working for the Rajah in the palace and despite the lack of an intellectual stimulus he does enjoy the work and his colleagues. The wife is a puritan, does not like the natives, looks on everyone as savages if they are not Christian and generally looks down on everyone around her. Sophie our heroine is the charming, innocent daughter of these two who unhappily falls in love with one who definitely forbidden territory. One of the local boys. To his own family this is a disgrace and one which leads to his father leaving the household of the Rajah in disgrace and going back to his old village.

Fast forward a good time and we find Sophie married to a supposedly charming man who is also in the diplomatic services with his posting to New Delhi on the cards. This posting opens up a world which Sophie has kept tightly hidden within herself and the series of coincidental events which unfold could be just a romantic story or could be what would also be described as your karma or fate from which one can generally never escape.

Very descriptive of colonial India both before independence and at the time of independence, the paranoia over separation, the jitteriness amongst the old colonials who are torn between going back to a home they do not know or understand or settling in India for good, an India which does not look very favourably on them at that. 

The split between two time frames of Sophie as a youngster and Sophie years later her lover as a young boy and then later as a man and also her father in his retirement were very interesting facets of the book. 

Excellent storytelling and at the heart of it a story of love, family, betrayal and regained love. 

MAILBOX MONDAY/IT'S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Hosted by Book Obsessed  for the month of July.

Nothing new to report this week. Yet playing catch up after returning from Melbourne. The reason for all the delay is this !

Tia is with us along with her parents.

I never realized how absorbing and what a lot of time goes into looking after the needs of a little one!!!! We are very fortunate in Sri Lanka to have help available so it is very little hard work and a lot of pleasure!!!!

This meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

I have gone back to re reads - right now its P D James The Lighthouse. With such a lot of activity in the house there is no point going in for a new book. Reading taking a back seat for the next two weeks at least. 

My daughter and son in law are back home after two years so there is a lot of parties, dinners and the all important food aspect. I think all children returning home are nostalgic for home cooked meals!!!

THE CHALICE by NANCY BILYEAU

Second in a series featuring the intrepid nun Joanna. Set in Tudor England at a time of great religious strife and indecision.

I loved The Crown and was looking forward to getting into this one. It somehow did not have the impact that the first book had for me. This story set in 1538 shows Joanna now in the secular world, her convent like so many convents and monasteries dissolved, all their treasures taken over by the State. Joanna is trying to establish a tapestry business as a means of livelihood. This is something she is good at and she needs to earn her living. She also has the responsibility of a little boy - Arthur whom she intends to bring up.

This peaceful life is disrupted by a prophecy that involves Joanna. It is a dangerous one. One that involves the overthrow of the present King and establishing  Catholic rule in England. Being from a powerful family herself despite being a nun, Joanna is constantly thrown into contact with the aristocracy and there are many who are aware of how dangerous she can be to their own positions. This puts Joanna in grave danger particularly as she herself seems to ignore her own personal danger as against what she is destined to do.

The author describes not just the plot and period very well but also the details of the everyday living of its ordinary inhabitants. This is the part I liked as it brings life as it was in Tudor England to life. For me there was a somewhat sameness in the story of Joanna and maybe that was why it was not as exciting as the first book.

As a piece of historical fiction this was a good read though. 

AFTERWARDS by ROSAMUND LUPTON

This was creepy/fantastic in the (you can't say the nicest way) but certainly in a way that caught your interest, held it throughout the book. You were also hoping and cheering for a good ending but sadly it was not all good.

A fire at the school where Adam and Jenny attend seems very much like what it appears. An accident. Grace realizing that Jenny is still inside the building rushes in to get to her. Both of them are badly hurt in this fire.

What transpires next is what I would consider art in story telling. How this author weaves in the story of every caring parent, wanting to protect and guard their children against all odds that life throws at them and this continues irrespective of whether the child is 7 or 17 or 37. The instinct to protect and how this continues in this story, despite both mother and daughter being unconscious and acting out of their bodies as it were makes for a fantastic read.

The story is a mystery thriller as well and although it is sad, it is not a story that is grief stricken and did not leave me feeling the way I do with some sad stories. I've given up on Jodi Picoult as it leaves me depressed for days afterwards. Lupton did not do that for me and that was really good.

Very interesting reading - drifting between fantasy and fact for the reader was unusual but intriguing.